someone once suggested to me.. generally speaking of plants .... that by the time you see the flower .. all the energy has already been spent..

so removing them doesnt really accomplish much ... except perhaps your impression that you are doing something worthwhile ...

soooo.. if it makes you happy.. go for it ....

ken

ps: im not seeing the correlation between flowering and branch development ....... but then maybe that is a bonsai theory/system i am unaware of .... is the bonsai forum dead?

"by the time you see the flower .. all the energy has already been spent."

that sucks. if that's true. I will let it flower. enjoy their flower a lot. they are not bonsai. just normal fragrant flowering houseplant. jasmine sambac, sweet olive, cestrum, chamapca, orange jasmine, epiphyllum are all I have.

Perennial plants bloom every year at their normal time, unless something prevents it. Cutting off the flowers of perennials seems to come from incorrectly conflating them with true annuals. One might delay some true annual plants by preventing them from blooming, but nothing will prevent them from dying quickly as they are true annuals.

If a perennial plant is not healthy enough, or conditions prohibit floral development, blooms will not occur.

You may not think of your plant as a bonsai, but the trimming to encourage branching is a bonsai technique.

Your collection of scented blooms is lovely! By sweet olive, do you mean Osmanthus fragrans?

https://garden.org/plants/view/78065/Tea-Olive-Osmanthus-fragrans/

If so, it may be hardy outside at your location.

Same with the Jasmine:

https://garden.org/plants/view/77303/Arabian-Jasmine-Jasminum-sambac/

Woody and herbaceous plants are genetically programmed to prioritize energy allocation to their parts in a particular order, a distinct pecking order, if you will. Energy is first allocated to respiratory function, i.e. to maintenance of living tissues, then, to production of fine roots, followed by flower and seed/fruit production, then primary growth (extension of both roots and shoots), then secondary growth (thickening), and finally, the synthesis of defensive chemicals. From this, you can see that removing blooms frees up food/energy the plant can devote to primary and secondary growth, as well as synthesis of defense chemicals.

"By the time you see the flower .. all the energy has already been spent." Not true by any metric, and no theory involved. Blooms morph into fruits, and it takes energy to develop the fruits, which includes seeds, nuts, etc. So limiting bloom numbers or eliminating them altogether also limits profusion of fruits. I remove flower buds of developing plants as soon as they appear, and it frees up energy enough that the difference is conspicuous.

Often, practiced bonsai growers only allow their plants to fruit in alternate years; even then, the number of fruits is often limited because of how much energy goes into fruit development instead of increasing biomass and increasing the plants' ability to defend themselves.

Al