gardening: flowering

bianca's goal was to grow plants with a large yield of unfertilized female flowers. Usually male and female flowers grow on separate plants, but bianca did have one hermaphrodite in her last garden. Don't be fooled, kill the hermaphrodite even though it has female flowers; its not worth the risk of fertalizing the other female plants. By removing the male plants from the garden, the females remain unpollinated. Pollinated plants put much of their energy into producing seeds, rather than bud growth.


When to flower

Indoors, growers can force the plant to flower at any time. The plant flowers in response to the light cycle. When the light regimen includes a dark period of 10-12 hours each day, the plant stops its vegetative growth cycle and starts growing reproductive organs.

Since a tall plant produces no larger flowers than a short one, bianca tried to force her plants early. However, it was not early enough! bianca's closet is about 5 feet high. Changing the light regimen when the babies wer 15-18 feet high resulted in a final height of 3-4 feet. Although this led to some amazing topographical topiary, 3-4 feet was far too difficult to manage. Next time, bianca will change the light cycle when the kiddies are 6-8 inches high.

When the light cycle is switched to 12 hours off 12 on, the plant's growth changes from the vegetative cycle to the reproductive cycle. A few days after the change in the light regimen, all visible growth slows down. then the first flowers appear.

Males usually indicate first. The immature male flowers look like small pawnbrokers balls hanging from a stem, or a small cluster of grapes.

The immature female flowers are oval, pointed up and have a very thin hair-like strand extending from each flower.

As soon as any male plants indicate sex, gremove them from the garden. this prevents the females from being fertilized.

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