Chrysanthemums

[Martin H]

I took a picture of my chrysanthemum bed today after giving it a thorough hand-weed:



It'll be easier to see once those daffodils have finished dying down, but all the plants have come on well despite the cold May.

A few of the plants have only made two breaks this year, with several others only making three. I don't know why this is, in the past I've always had too many breaks rather than too few. Maybe it's the cold?

One plant, "David Shoesmith" produced 5 good breaks but has now started making flower buds. This is premature I think, even though I stopped it on the recommended date (10th April). Still, rather than try anything fancy I've secured the crown buds.

One of my many "Bloom Gold" plants had one of its two breaks taken off by the wind. I've stopped the remaining break to see what happens.

How's everybody else getting on?

[Number76]

I ordered a few single spray chrysanthemums from chrysanthemums direct on saturday. They arrived today by post. I am very impressed with both the quality of the plants and the quick service. I will be buying from them again in the future and would recommend them to others.

[Scarlet]

Well, I'm not sure how I'm doing! I stopped on the dates recommended. Some have 3 breaks, a few have two and one of them has quite a few. Though most have put on good growth - I've a couple that aren't that big. Feeling a bit lost though, as I really don't know what I'm doing.I need to get a book!

[Martin H]

Looking good, Scarlet!

Mine also have mostly 2 or 3 breaks, only a few have more than that. They look a bit more weatherbeaten than yours, I put them out a bit early...

On over half my plants, the breaks are now long enough that they can be tied up. This time I'm doing it the fiddly way: one cane per break. But your way, Scarlet, with one cane per plant, has worked fine for me in the garden.

I mentioned that one of my plants has made buds already. Here it is on the left of the picture: it's a bit short and a bit early but I've gone with it anyway and removed all the other buds. It might have been better to nip out the tops and let it grow on, but I'm new at this and didn't want to experiment when I only have the one plant of this variety. In retrospect I could have tried this with one or two of the breaks, but hey ho.

The other plants are developing more normally, like the one that's right of centre in this pic.



I've got a lot of plants of one variety, that was originally labelled "Bloom Gold" in the reduced-to-clear section of the garden centre. I've been stopping a couple of plants every week since 27th March and just got to the end of the row this week. Just to see what happens. Interestingly there's no obvious difference in the development of the first 8 plants, cuttings taken on 19th Feb but stopped between 27th March and 23rd April. All of these plants are now forming crown buds on the breaks. So it looks to me like stopping date is pretty irrelevant, at least for this variety.

The cuttings I took later (and stopped later) aren't forming buds yet.

[Martin H]

I picked a chrysanthemum yesterday. It's from the plant that formed buds rather too early.
The reason might be that the plant doesn't match the label. It's supposed to be a bronze flower "David Shoesmith" but it's actually pink.



Meanwhile the Bloom Gold are demonstrating that stopping between 27th March and 23rd April made no difference to the flowering date. The row nearest the camera were stopped in sequence from left to right:



I'll have a nice vase or two once they are fully open!

[Scarlet]

Oh, they look gorgeous Martin. I've flower buds on mine but I'm nowhere near flower stage. I particularly like that pink one

[Scarlet]

Hmm, being a complete novice at this, when is the last chance I can expect flowers? I've got flower buds on them all but only one has flowered so far. The others seem miles off.
Martin, have you got any photos of yours?

# reading your post above, I think I should have been taking some of the flower buds off

[Guest]

I didn't disbud mine and they are all top heavy and suffering for it. I only have one flowering but the majority of mine are late ones which will get moved back into the gh when there is space. Still very impressed with them though

[Scarlet]

I've got late ones as well, they have already been moved back into the GH but the earlier flowering varieties are planted in the one of my raised beds outside.

[Martin H]

I've been cutting mine for a while. The disbudded ones flower much more quickly, if you don't disbud then they can get very unstable and need lots of tying to stop the wind blowing them over.

I'm off to the allotment in a few minutes and will take some pictures.

Of mine, the ones that flowered earliest have thrown up more shoots that will flower soon. Also I've deliberately held back a few of mine by cutting back every time there were signs of flower buds, to see how late I can get them to flower. They will go into the greenhouse as soon as the tomatoes come out.

If you've outdoor ones that have buds but no flowers yet, they've got at least 6 weeks to finish the job so don't worry.

[Martin H]

Okay, so here's my disbudded ones, now on their second flush of blooms:


Disbudding is best done when the terminal bud is about pea sized. Leave them too long and the side shoots get big, so taking them away has less effect on the size of the bloom. Do then when the bud is tiny and you may subsequently find you have secured a damaged or malformed bud. If you'd waited you'd have noticed this and "run on" the shoot (this just means to remove the terminal bud and keep one of the top side shoots instead.

Here's an example from today, before and after disbudding. You'll see I've taken off all the sideshoots from the leaf axils, whether they have flower buds or not. You want to do this all the way down the stem. Sorry pics are a bit blurry, I was using the phone camera:



The non-disbudded ones are poor, falling over with the weight of the rain, with insufficient staking. I won't do it again with this variety, they work better as disbuds:

[bramble]

I have a full row of yellow chrysanths just coming into bloom. I can only say they are untamed, but looking forward to having many sprays to cut and bring indoors
Maybe next season i will have a bit more knowledge on how to debud them.

[Martin H]

My chrysanths on the allotment are still going great guns with this lovely autumn sunshine.



These are all "early flowering" types, but as I've cut flowers off I've let new breaks develop from lower down. By keeping up the disbudding they've carried on producing new cut flowers.

[Scarlet]

I've only had one that flowered a few weeks ago. The others are just opening now, though my ebay special was labeled up wrong. The "white celebrations" are all pink so far! Will need to read up a bit more for next year as I really should have been taking some flowers off!

Martin, how to I start off new plants from these for next year?

[Scarlet]

I have a full row of yellow chrysanths just coming into bloom. I can only say they are untamed, but looking forward to having many sprays to cut and bring indoors
Maybe next season i will have a bit more knowledge on how to debud them.

Same for me Bramble!