Deflowering Day

The first week of school in late September we spent one morning deflowering all the plants that were blooming outside.  It was time to bring them in to the greenhouse to ready them for handmaiden duty:  they would soon become the "mothers" or stock plants to all the cuttings we would take from them for new plants in the spring.

By deflowering them we were keeping pests out of the greenhouse, insects that would otherwise be tempted by their nectar.

In the end the compost was overflowing with all the flowers heads we'd plucked that morning.

Heliotrope, abutilon, fuchsias of all kinds...

Check back in May when all the cuttings have grown into flowering plants for the big sale...that's the idea, anyway!