What is flowering?
Flowering is the stage in a cannabis plant's life when it stops growing in size and focuses on forming its flowers, the buds. It's the final phase of the grow: when it ends, it's time to harvest.
A cannabis plant's life has two main stages. First comes the growth stage (also called the vegetative stage), when the plant puts out stems, branches and leaves. Then comes flowering, when the buds appear and fill up with resin.
Think of a fruit tree: first it grows and puts out leaves, and only later does it produce flowers and fruit. Something similar happens with cannabis, except that what you harvest is the flowers.
What triggers flowering depends on the type of plant. Photoperiod plants flower when the nights get longer: outdoors this happens at the end of summer, and indoors the grower triggers it by leaving the light on for 12 hours a day. Autoflowering plants flower on their own based on age, regardless of light.
How to read the "flowering time" on a product page
On our product pages you'll see figures like "Flowering: 8–9 weeks". This is the time given by the seed bank, and it helps to know how it's counted:
- For photoperiod plants, it's the number of weeks from the start of flowering (indoors, from when you switch to 12 hours of light) until harvest. It doesn't include the growth stage before it.
- For autoflowers, check carefully which figure you're given. Some product pages show the flowering time, just like photoperiod plants. Others show the seed-to-harvest time, which adds up growth and flowering, and is therefore a higher number.
- For outdoor growing, the approximate harvest month is often given, for example "late September", based on the northern hemisphere.
It's a guide. The actual time depends on the plant, the climate and when you decide to harvest. As a general rule, sativa-type strains usually take longer than indica-type ones.
What changes in the plant during flowering?
At first, the plant has one last growth spurt (the stretch). Then the pistils appear, little white hairs that mark where the buds will form. In the last few weeks, the buds fatten up, get covered in resin and the aroma becomes more intense.
See the fast version strains, with faster flowering
Related terms
Before you grow, check the laws in your country: growing cannabis is not allowed everywhere.
