What should I do with these please?

Yo! This first fine looking chap (no, not me ...the plant) , has a funny Latin styley name I think? But it's proper name is 'Cloth of gold'! ??
It has been on the deck, so I have rammed a stake into it, and pinned it up.
Where it was on the deck, it looks a bit naff. Should I hack off the naff bits? Or will they recover? It looks nice from the house side of it any suggestions?

 

I also have this......It looks like a cabbage to me with long stemmed flowers. Do I cut the stems down to the soil when the flower dies? Or just leave it?

 

How about this sorry looking thing. It's called Phlox light pink.
Is it dead? It's very woody and dry looking :(
Saying that.....there is something that has appeared at its base. Is this the plant regenerating itself? Or just a weed growing up? :(
I stuck it in the ground last year, and it looked fine then.

 

The first one is Achillea or Yarrow. You might see it growing wild in places. Lovely thing.
Do you mean it was in a pot on the decking and you planted it where it is now? It might like a bit of a feed.
The phlox is busy coming back.

 

No, on the deck (as in ground, not decking). It has been in the earth for a year almost. It's poorly bits are probably from being on the soil??? It gets waterlogged there :(
Do you mean the plant is the lovely thing?
I put some food granules around its base last week. Slow and fast acting.

 

Busy coming back? So it's a root growing up from it?

 

Yes, the plant is a lovely thing.
The leaves at the base of the last plant mean it is waking up after being dormant over the winter so it is doing ok.
So the plant being on the deck means it was on the ground?

 

Hi Geezer, what our good friend Lea means, is it an Herbaceous Perennial. It will grow from the spring, through summer, then when it has finished flowering / setting seed, it will slowly start to die off. Then it will turn into the stick you see, all the time it is putting down a root system, and next spring will regenerate itself from the crown (the bit just below the surface) giving you (hopefully) many years of pleasure.

 

Yo, on the ground. Like when some geezer gets decked.
So, it's good news then
Should I rip off the woody root? It looks dead, or leave it? It looks awful sticking up like that

 

Yep, using sharp secateurs (or scissors) and cut right to the base, be careful of the new growth tho'

ETA: When it looks like it is passed it's best later in the year, cut it down to the base. This will give the roots all the energy, and will help it through the winter. Then just about Feb / March time next year, give it a feed around the plant with something like fish,blood and bone, or any good dry fertiliser.

 

Cool I get to snip
I do have some of that blood stuff I think. I will sniff it out
Thanks to you both

 

You would do no harm to sprinkle some around it now, I go by my own rule of a circle 4-6 inches (12-18cm) from the main stem going inwards to the plant stopping an inch or 2 (3 -6cm) from main stem, but just a light dressing. I then lightly hand fork it into the top of the soil.

 

I have just snipped
I will look for the dried blood now

 

We don't get black pudding from plants mate

 

I wish we did i would flog it
Safe