Roots, Not Seeds

Sacrifice new color for new roots.

Short term pain, for long term gain!

The whole reason a plant flowers is to reproduce and make seeds.

When you bring a flowering plant home, it will try to get busy making seeds.

If you want to plant in a container or in the ground, you want to encourage them to grow ROOTS, not seeds so a very painful task should happen - remove existing flowers…..just this once!

Here’s about Pansies https://youtube.com/shorts/hba-74-biow?feature=share

And here’s what you can do with salvia/sage - and make spring bouquets! Gary -The Punisher -Tabby Cat approves.

You can do the same with dahlias and snapdragons! I just added some starts to the cutting garden today.

Usually, there would be a single focal point flower like a dahlia, surrounded by secondary flowers and fillers. Snapdragons would give a bouquet upward motion. But for today, I’m just using what I cut from the new plants. I also took the bottom flowers off the snap drag stems and floated them in water.

Bringing them in the house the same day I plant helps me appreciate them more AND reminds me to water them until they are established!

I do like to take photos of the blooming plants for future references! If I’m just deadheading, I like to leave the blooms on the ground around the plants.