I do remove the dead foliage, as soon as it appears.
By the time the plants bud, all the dead foliage is trimmed off.

I stop time at night, and during the day when I'm on the computer I check constantly.
I mark the times when each next event should happen, buds, maturity, seeds, and I'm careful to check on time.

I'm home on permanent disability after months of hospitalization and recovery, so I basically have little else to do right now while I'm still restricted to very limited mobility.

I played Fish Tycoon first and finished that, so now I've started Plant Tycoon.
Once Plant Tycoon is done, I was thinking of playing all the Virtual Villagers games starting with the first one.
I think it would be more fun to start at the beginning.