Cineraria

You have me a bit confused here, Blades, as my RHS book tells me that 'Dusty Miller' is Lychnis coronaria, as I thought. In my Dr Hessayon under 'Cineraria' it's subtitled 'Senecio'. There's no mention of the small yellow flowers. Is your Cineraria a house plant please?

Cineraria, is indeed a house plant Spritz, although i can not find any mention of a yellow one, nor have i seen one, according to my reference books they come in blue, purple, pink, white and peachy colours. - as a house plant! but there is always the possibilty that since my book was printed they have come up with a new variety! lol and they are not easy to grow! and very short lived, there are a whole host of problems listed that are 'special problems' common with this plant. and again i agree with spritz, dusty millar is indeed a garden plant with pink or white flowers called L. coronaria. Senico is again something different and the only one out of what you have mentioned that does have yellow flowers. and to be honest i can't think why you would need to remove the flower buds of either of these two plants they are pretty easy and free flowering garden plants. but if it is a Cineraria that you have, then i can only gues that removing the first set of buds, might be to help keep the plant compact and promote more flowers and a longer flowering period, as it says in my book that the plants are prone to becoming leggy and can collapse the plant. and once the flowers finish the plants die. but usually i would recomend gentle pruning and dead heading instead which would have the same effect and mean that you wont loose out on flowers. the only other reason i can think of is certain variety of Chrisanthemum have the first bud on each stem removed so that they send out lots of side buds creating a 'spray chrisanthemum' as appose to a single stem flower. but this is only done for cut flower use. so you have me stumped too. - do you have a picture of this plant? and did it come with a lable or have you idenified it yourself from pictures?

My Cineraria is out in the garden! It is yellow, it has flowers that look like little pouches.I certainly don't remove any buds, though. I am very puzzled.

Do you mean Cineraria maritima, which is only grown for it's foliage. In some years when it's been hot and dry ours on our traffic islands send up flower stalks. we take them off to keep the plant compact. But maybe yours is another variety.

If Cineraria martima then the yellow flowers pretty insignificant and grow on leggy stems which should be removed to keep plant compact and remain as silver foliage contrast.Think the confusion may arise from grey foliage shrub Senecio cineraria this has been re classified under Cineraria as the Senecio genus includes ragwort , groundsel etc. A mistake I feel as this shrub should be classified as a weed straggly unruly with unattractive yellow flower.If it this then dont just remove flower dig the whole thing out.