help needed with Nasturtiums

Hi all,
I have a small patch of nasturtiums in front of flower bed and they have been flowering really well since last 1.5 months. Now, they have started going leggy with old leaves, and i think there is an insect eating all the chlorophyll off the leaves as i can see colorless patches on them. I try to remove as much dead flowers as possible, there are just too many and they are covered with insects (black dot like things). I was wondering, what shud i do to make them all nice and green and colourful again?? can I cut off old leaves?or shud i give them proper hair cut? and yes, I dont if this is useful, they are trailing variety

 

Sounds like they have got a bad blackfly infestation and perhaps a virus as well. You can rub off the blackfly with your fingers, messy but satisfying. Or you can spray with chemicals to get rid of them.
You could cut off the worst of the leaves to make them look better, low down so you don't leave a bare stalk sticking up. If you look along the length of trailing stem and see a good cluster of buds anywhere, you could cut back to that point and let them regenerate from there. So, yes, a proper haircut if you are brave enough!

Then you would be best off feeding and watering to get them looking lush again. The received wisdom is that nasturtiums won't flower well in rich soil but I thin the priority is to get them growing fast again.

 

Thx...

 

Gave thm a cut, fingers crossed now.. too many black bugs

 

You could spray them with soapy water, which helps a bit with aphids and such.

With nasturtium though, if they are in open ground and can get all the water and nutrients they need from the ground, I find they are as tough as old boots. Keep chopping off ugly parts, and this encourages lots of new growth.