Chrysanthemums

By Pippa Greenwood

Please mention The Villager and Town Life when responding to adverts 54 In recent years chrysanthemums, with their richly coloured flowers in a whole host of shapes and sizes, have had a well-deserved revival. They’re great in garden borders and beds, down on the allotment, in containers and grown in a greenhouse. If planted out over the next few weeks, you’ll get a tremendous display of flowers during late summer and into autumn. Their blooms come in a range of colours, mostly bronzes, mahoganies, golds, creams and yellows with a good few pinks, deep reds and purples too, and bring colour to your garden when most of the summer flowers are past their best.

Growing Tips

Check the information on the chrysanthemums you choose, as exactly how you treat them depends on the type or varieties you have. As a rule they’ll need planting with a spacing of 30-45cm (12-18in) and many will need support from a cane or proprietary support. Choose a well-fertilised and well-drained spot to grow them in the garden. When using pots or containers, make sure they have plenty of drainage holes. The best compost is a loam-based John Innes No.3, and I’d add a little horticultural grit to keep the drainage good. Chrysanthemums need regular watering to flower well, but take care not to over water. To get the best out of them, a weekly feed during the growing season is worthwhile. You can buy specially formulated chrysanthemum fertilisers but if you don’t have one to hand then a high-potash liquid feed will do well. Pinch out the tips of chrysanthemum plants so that side-shoots will form rapidly, which will keep the plant bushy and flowering well. Just remove the tip of the young plant, leaving about five leaves. If you want your chrysanthemums to produce fewer but larger flowers, you will need to ‘disbud’ each flower stem by removing all the buds and side shoots (when they are about 2cm long), so that you are left with just the top or terminal bud. If you prefer more but smaller flowers (a ‘spray’) then you’ll need to do the opposite i.e. remove the terminal bud and leave all the side shoots.

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Chrysanthemums must be protected from frosts, so generally this means you’ll need to store them in frost-free conditions from late autumn until it is safe to plant them out again, usually in May or later, once there is no danger of frosts. When you lift your chrysanthemums for storing, carefully remove most of the garden soil from their roots. Next trim the top growth back to about 25cm (6in), and do the same with the roots. The plants can then be temporarily ‘planted’ in trays (seed trays will do) of well-drained compost kept in a frost-free spot over the winter. Occasional light watering of the roots may be needed, but keep the plants on the dry side. In early spring you’ll need to water the plants a little more to encourage them to start to grow away strongly, ready for planting out in late spring. If you opt for chrysanthemum types such as the Bebbie, Allouise or Misty varieties, you can plant these out any time from the end of April until June as long as all danger of frost has passed – so check the local weather forecast! With these you should pinch them out two to three weeks after planting and you should aim for three to four stems to develop per plant. If, when you pinch them out, there is any sign of a terminal bud, you’ll need to remove a large piece of the plant, maybe even more than half. A look through a few catalogues and websites will reveal just what a vast array of shapes, sizes, types and colours are available. Some of those that have really caught my eye include:

• ‘Primrose Enbee’, an early spray type with simple, primrose-yellow blooms. • ‘Chestnut Talbot Maid’, an early spray double with near-spherical fox-brown flowers, and the lovely lilac-purple ‘Talbot Parade’. • The outdoor pot and bush forms such as the

‘Pompon Collection’ in several colours, including

‘Red’ and ‘Red Bronze’. • ‘Green Mist’, a seriously wacky variety with limegreen spidery flowers, just like those you generally only see in smart bouquets! • ‘Misty Primrose’ with near-spherical bright yellow flowers, and other Misty types in red and purple. • The ‘Spartan’ chrysanthemums such as ‘Raspberry’, with wonderfully pinkish petals and a striking contrasting golden-yellow centre, and the goldenorange ‘Spartan Linnet’.

At Pippa’s website (www.pippagreenwood.com) you’ll find stylish cloches, practical and pretty plant supports, Nemaslug and other great ‘green’ controls, the fantastic SpeedHoe, gardening tools, Grower Frames, signed books and more. Or book Pippa for a talk at your gardening club.