Cut flowers

When I was here over the summer, and Jon and his landscape crew came in to fashion some trellises and plant a few bougainvilleas on the back deck, as they were cleaning up I asked them not to cut the palm blooms along the street.

My rationale was that if you let the blooms stay, the fronds don't drop to make way for new ones, and there's less chance that people think you're away if the pathways are fallen-frond-free.

Jon's head guy, Martín, put the question into the most direct perspective: "We don't cut the flowers?"

I had thought of palm blooms and how they look like airborn coral, but not flowers, and I explained my plan. He agreed.

And the strategy worked: When we got back, all of the palms were in flower, and all the fronds looked fresh. So I got out my tree saw, and this pile of dead reproductive bits was at least 5 feet long.

I look forward to a regular flower/frond harvest this winter.