Plant that has "gone to seed?"

Even though in human life this phrase indicates disilution and giving up, does not a perennial plant that has "gone to seed" still carry on living again the next year and go through the whole process again? Or is this aphrase used to denote those plants which have finished their life cycles completely, even if they are perennials?

 

It sounds like an old farming term, and one which is applied to those annuals that we eat-rather than ornamentals. I haven't ever used the term for perennials because they are ornamental(well all mine are anyway). Fruits being the exception.

 

Gone to seed - or bolted - is usually used to describe a plant that has gone to seed before you wanted it to.
Like lettuce, beetroot, Pak Choi, brocolli, turnips - which have gone to seed before producing the crop you were looking for.
It happens when a plant is under stress - too hot, too dry, too wet, too cold.
This year has been bad for some plants - too hot and dry.

It can happen with flowers too. The trick there is to deadhead them and not let them go to seed. Once they have made seed they stop flowering. I have to cut my sweetpeas every day to stop them making seed and keep them flowering.

I hope this makes sense and helps to answer your question SimonZ.

 

Most perennials do just that, fruit trees produce fruit every year and also lots of flowers produce seeds annually but some annuals,perennials and biennials are described as "monocarpic" that is they die after producing seed or fruit,some complete this cycle in a year as in the case of most annuals others like Bamboos, Yuccas and Puyas can take many years before they flower then they die when they have completed their cycle.

 

As Alice said, the other phrase one hears is "bolted", which means essentially the same thing. Although both phrases can technically refer to garden flowers, I think they are usually used by vegetable growers. But as I am not one myself - pardon my ignorance.

A lot of plants form large rosettes of basal leaves for a some time. And when they flower, a flowering shoot arises, some times a very long way, from this rosette - bearing first flowers and then seeds. I have a number of Salvias that do this, and Heuchera is another example. I understand that a number of vegetables also do this; the basal leaves often being the edible bit. But once this flowering spike appears, the plant is going to put its energy into seed production rather than growing new leaves. And as Walnut said, many if not most, being monocarpic, will then die.