ERIN NEGLEY | Staff WriterEditor's note: This story was originally published in Oct. 13 and has been updated with news of the 1,000-bloom mum.
The star of Longwood Gardens’ Chrysanthemum Festival has canceled at the last minute for the past two years.
Just like Bruce Springsteen or Luke Bryan, the 1,000-bloom chrysanthemum was too sick to go on stage.
A lot can go awry when growing largest chrysanthemum outside of Asia. This week, the mega mum took its place in the spotlight. The plant's more than 12 feet in diameter: the widest ever grown at Longwood.
The largest mum is one of more than 5,000 in the garden’s annual festival celebrating the fall flower. And while none are as demanding, it still takes 18 months for so many mums to bloom at the right time.
“Hands down, chrysanthemum festival is the hardest thing we have to do,” says Jim Sutton, Longwood’s associate director of display design.
The 42nd Chrysanthemum Festival has giant yellow spider mums, mums resembling daisies, mums that look like a bad hair day and a lot more. There are also living sculptures with mums trained into forms like spirals, trees, clouds and pagodas. The show continues through Nov. 12.
Thousand-bloom mum at Longwood Gardens [photos]
It takes staff at Longwood Gardens 18 months to grow a 1,000-bloom mum. When it's ready, the plant needs to go from the nursery to the conservatory. The move is careful and can not happen in bad weather, says Jim Sutton, Longwood’s associate director of display design.
Chrysanthemum Festival is now through November 12 at Longwood Gardens
The annual festival’s rooted in Longwood’s collection of chrysanthemums. With more than 180 cultivars, it’s one of the largest collections in the country.
Even a sizable collection can’t escape the diseases that plague chrysanthemums. When Sutton designs the indoor displays, he selects mums that are virus-free and makes sure to include all 13 classes set by the National Chrysanthemum Society. This year, more than 30 cultivars bloom throughout the conservatory. To keep things bright through the seven-week shows, fresh plants replace the starting lineup.
One of the largest chrysanthemum creations is the curtain framing the music room. It’s made of fiery chrysanthemum and morifolium ‘Yosun City’ Point Pelee mixed with bronze-leaved toffee twist sedge framing neon green pothos. The patchwork of plants form a seamless tall “curtain.” If you had X-ray vision, you’d see a system of troughs supporting hundreds of plant pots, none larger than 6 inches.
Many of the mums are trained into forms. The pagodas, for example, have eight levels of yellow mums growing from a central branch. Artemesia provides the structure onto which mums are grafted. The plant’s a great candidate with its straight trunk and strong lateral branches, Sutton says. However, artemisia is an annual plant and when it’s time to fade, that can kill the mums. Luckily, four survived and are on display.
The most complicated chrysanthemum, the thousand-bloom showpiece, was a success after its predecessors succumbed to disease and climatic issues, Sutton says.
There are few types of mums able to withstand such training, which takes 18 months. The cycles of wilting and watering to position the buds is especially stressful, he says. The team studied the large mums that didn’t make it, looking at soil, plant tissue and nutrition, and keep trying again.
This week, the Chrysanthemum × morifolium ‘Susono-no-Hikari’ and its 1,366 yellow flowers took its place inside the conservatory.
Mums in Hershey
At Hershey Gardens, about 1,400 mums are blooming outdoors.
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