If you like to color in the home greenhouse during the fall months, chrysanthemums are unsurpassed with their wide range of colors and forms.
In the garden, they provide the last big splash of bloom before frost time, and in the greenhouse, other more tender kinds carry on with a display that is more riotous than bloom from spring plants.
Variety Of Chrysanthemums
In the milder parts of the country, a wide variety of chrysanthemums will grow out of doors.
In the colder north, however, the selection is more limited, where either beating rains or frosts spoil the flowers, not to mention that the roots are not hardy.
Therefore, the parade of chrysanthemums in the colder regions continues indoors in cool home greenhouses or glassed-in porches where amateur gardeners can enjoy bloom from October through November and into December.
Generally, the chrysanthemums grown indoors are referred to as “greenhouse types,” a term which refers both to tender varieties.
As well as the more exotic types, such as cascades and the large flowering “mums” associated with football games.
Feature Of Chrysanthemums
The feature of chrysanthemums is that their vegetative growth and the formation of their buds are primarily controlled by the relative length of night and day.
Plants begin forming their flower buds during the late summer and early autumn when there is long uninterrupted darkness.
Bud formation also can be delayed by hanging electric lights over plants during late August, September, and October for a period starting with sunset and ending with bedtime.
Chrysanthemum Culture
Chrysanthemum culture is simple so that the rankest of amateurs can grow them.
With them, the new year begins when flowers on the old plants die.
The first step is to cut the stems to the ground, and if plants are growing in the garden or on the greenhouse bench, lift them and put them in boxes of sizes that are easy to handle.
Then store, as they are, in a deep cold frame, under the benches of a cool greenhouse or cellar.
Growth For Cuttings
In January, February or March, depending on the kind of plant you want in the fall, place boxes with plants on greenhouse benches to make young growth for cuttings. This takes about a month.
Take cuttings early to give a long growing season for large specimens or specially trained or shaped plants.
April allows ample time for smaller plants of small-flowered varieties or to grow with a single flower.
Cuttings taken from 3” to 4” inches will root in the sand in about four weeks.
A hormone powder for rooting is not necessary, but many gardeners use it for quicker results.
Well-Rooted Cuttings
When the cuttings are well-rooted, pot in 2” and ¼” inch or 3-inch pots in good soil with liberal humus and plant food.
Then, as they grow, do not allow to get potbound but shift to larger containers from time to time.
Those who do not want to propagate their own may purchase small potted plants in early May.
Plants grown for single flowers or small floral varieties raised as bushy specimens will eventually require 5” to 6” inches pots.
Large Specimen Plants
Large specimen plants may require 8” inches or even 10”-inch pots to attain their maximum size.
Pot-grown plants can be kept in the greenhouse all summer or plunged into the ground outdoors and brought into the greenhouse in September.
For use as cut flowers, shifting plants from small pots directly into the greenhouse bench, where they will grow all summer.
Or they may be set outdoors in the garden and, during a cool, rainy spell in September, lifted carefully with a good ball and brought into the greenhouse.
There they can be potted or planted on the greenhouse bench. Then, after moving, shade from the sun for a week or more.
No matter the method of culture you try, the fundamental rules are the same. Keep plants growing vigorously, and check for water, food, and need for repotting before flowering time.
Guard against attacks by insects and diseases and stake plants to grow into desired shapes. Outdoors and additional supports will be needed to prevent breakage by high winds and heavy rains.
Good Garden Soils
Good garden soil will grow chrysanthemums, but for superior bloom, provide rich soil and supplement with a liquid fertilizer in late summer.
Pests are relatively few but watch for them. A virus disease may cause the condition accurately described as a “stunt.”
It has no known cure, so lift and burn plants with retarded symptoms.
Soil Preventing Nematodes
Nematodes have discouraged some growers, but soil treated with sodium selenate will prevent infection.
However, this chemical is poisonous, so avoid using it where vegetables will be grown in future years.
Some chrysanthemum growers raise, grow and ship plants in treated soil. Attack from aphids may be checked with nicotine sulfate, malathion, or many other sprays.
Fermate and captan will prevent leaf figurations by fungi, while lead arsenate or DDT will destroy chewing insects.
Small Flowering Chrysanthemum Types
The small flowering types of chrysanthemums need the least care, and many gardeners prefer them to large ones.
However, large specimen plants need constant staking, tying, and disbudding.
To grow one big single flower, considerable judgment, only gained by experience, is needed to decide which buds to nip off and which one to select for the single bloom.
The large in-curved varieties can be used, although the stems may be pinched to encourage branching and numerous flowers.
The pompon, single, anemone, and spider and spoon types may be grown as graceful plants by pinching in May and June and up to late July.
Selecting Ideal Chrysanthemums
Which of the many types and colors to grow is a matter of individual taste.
For outdoor bloom, the earlier blooming pompons and singles are the easiest to handle, but for indoor bloom, emphasize those that flower in November or even later.
Often chrysanthemum catalogs give the date of bloom, but the amateur should consider these dates relative rather than absolute.
If, for example, he lives 10 miles to the north or the south, or if big trees shade his greenhouse, light conditions will vary.
If he wants a later bloom, he should experiment with electric lights to see how much the flower will be retarded.
Japanese Reflexed Types
One of the most outstanding Japanese reflexed types, it blooms in mid-November. Anna, one of the first singles in the cascade group, was introduced by a great chrysanthemum grower, Elmer D. Smith, in 1909.
Ten years later, Mr. Smith introduced Sunglow and advised that the bud be selected on August 15th for bloom in late October.
Still, later in 1935, he introduced Highlights, while almost as old as the pompon Alice, one of the first to come from Mr. Smith’s present-day rival, V. H. de Petris.
The reflexed Glitters, which blooms the last week of October, dates from about the same time.
Each of these varieties has held its own against the flood of introductions of the past 10 years.
The color plate, however, is more important in showing the different types and colors than in recommending the particular varieties to any one amateur in a given area.
To choose varieties, visit chrysanthemum shows and nurseries.
44659 by John C. Wister