I understand completely! The more you deadhead, the more blooms you get....and if you want a lusher looking plant, obviously you'd want to deadhead to encourage blooms.....Columbine is supposed to be a good hummingbird magnet....so if hummers like it, by extension, so do I.

As for finite space, you have no idea how well I understand that. Don't forget, I live in an apartment. Unlike the place where I lived in Iowa that used its 5 acre property at least in part, to create gardens for tenants, (something that it used to its advantage as a selling point for apartment dwellers who also loved plants and gardening,) this place could give a hoot.....To them, landscape design consists of planting copious amounts of ugly and boring liriope that doesn't do much, planting a few tropical looking trees around the pool, a crape myrtle here and there, lots of hideous bushes that are maintained with chain saws, a holly here and there, and a lot of oleander which happens to be among the 10 most toxic of all plants. Never mind that a lot of small kids live here. You get the idea. Outside my place, there's a drainage grate that's supposed to catch run off because we don't have adequate drainage control around here....that is, when it rains, and when it does, everything in this area floods -- especially the second bedroom of my next door neighbors apartment. Anyway, I had taken over that area because there's no grass there. Everything was hunky dorey until they finally decided that I had to remove everything from the ground and put all my pots on the patio.....some came in the house, but the rest had to fit on the patio. Needless to say, that's the extent of my space. I intend to do a lot of hanging baskets from now on....and before my husband and I move, I may just drop some poison oak or poison sumac so that the people who have to take care of the grounds get a good dose of their own medicine. Hehehe I'm not feeling very kind towards these folks....and don't get me started any more than I already have....I'd go into a real tirade then!