grow exhibition mums

The Society of American Florists says Chrysanthemum signifies“loveliness," especially during November. One New Jersey man uses another “L" word when he describes his passion.

“I love the flower. It's challenging to grow and interesting," says Steve Avallone, a central New Jersey resident and chrysanthemum exhibitor. “My father was a barber. I took his trade as my profession and I took my mother's heritage as a hobby." Avallone joined the New Jersey Chrysanthemum Society 30 years ago when he started growing mums and has been president for the last 10.

Avallone plays with mums year-round. In February or March, he takes cuttings and puts them in PRO-MIX in flats on the floor of a 45-foot greenhouse. They root in three weeks. On June 15 like clockwork he puts several into one large pot and, as soon as he sees growth, feeds weekly with a dilute 30-10-10 for two-three weeks, alternating with 15-30-15. He also uses Osmocote but advises, “If you notice the leaves get dark green and hard, lighten up and use it half strength. They're getting too much Nitrogen at that point." Every fourth or fifth feeding, he flushes the salts out with water. He sprays weekly with Malathion for sucking insects and with Isotox for chewing insects.

To grow cascades on wire frames, Avallone plants stolons in January and puts them together in a large pot 11 weeks later in April. He uses B9, a plant growth inhibitor, on mums in hanging baskets to keeps stems short and the plant uniform. He also uses it on disbuds, Harvest Giants, and Early English at the time the buds form. “B9 keeps the necks short. Judges don't like long necks," he says.

The Chrysanthemum Society holds their show during October. They count back 10 weeks from the show and put black shading on the plants to gear them up to bloom later. The 8-9-week hardy varieties bloom 9 weeks after July 20. This means the plant has a 9-week flowering response to shortening daylight hours. The 10-week varieties, such as spiders and incurves, bloom 10 weeks after July 20, and so on with 11 and 12-week varieties.

Judges award 90% of points for the flower and 5% for leaves and stem. puts his cut mum blossoms in bleached wine bottles with Floralife prior to the show. “I clean them up and groom them so there are no stubbles between the leaf axils, no holes. I wash the leaves. It can be the difference between a blue ribbon and a trophy," he says.

So, why does this second-generation barber spend his time clipping stems and flowers in the morning and hair by day? “I do it for fun, you know? It's called 'having fun with plants.'"

At Longwood Gardens, the 20,000 mums on exhibit during the annual autumn Chrysanthemum Festival in November are a bit more lavish but treated similarly.

Large balls, six to eight feet high and suspended from the ceiling in the Main Conservatory, take a year to grow, says Karl Gercens, who changes conservatory displays.

All mums for the indoor festival are the non-hardy and cascade types. Cascade mums used in hanging baskets and the curtain over the stage branch heavily. Gardeners start them in December, ten months before the festival. Cuttings are taken, rooted, potted and staked until May 1, when they're wilted down and grown onto frames that surround the pots. Stems are sandwiched between mesh frames and tied.

“Once a week each stem is gone over and every side branch is pinched and laid down. The whole framework is covered in a mat of stems. From each pot we get a rectangle of stems and foliage 3 feet wide by 5 feet long. Each stem has a cluster of flowers forming a blanket of flowers. We connect the rectangles to create a curtain for the north wall of the Exhibition Hall," says Jim Harbage, research and production division leader.

Koa Kanamee, horticulture helper, works on Thousand Blooms - a traditional Japanese art whereby 1,000 flowers cover one dome-shaped single-stemmed plant. At Longwood, growers try for 150 to 200 blooms, arranged in evenly-spaced rings around the plant.

Growers select plants for display which will produce the desired effect of flowers in concentric rings. “We shoot for a matching pair,Ã¢â‚¬Â says Kanamee. This year, gardeners kept three white C. Kenbu with 190 blossoms for display out of the dozen started in July 2005.

The plants are pinched repeatedly and grown under lights. A heavy wire umbrella-shaped frame on a support is placed over the plant canopy. Plants are wilted down in a controlled way to cause stems to go soft, then each stem is placed so that the unopened flower bud is evenly spaced in the frame in a pattern. Gardeners pinch the branches up to ten days before display.

In the Orangery, 88 plants create seven skirts and a 150 square-foot curtain of solid chrysanthemums. A 10-foot high ring holds eight pots of three plants each. For weeks before the show, artificial light from 4-10PM extends the day to encourage bloom. They remain in flower through autumn's short days and the show.

Topiaries large and small, a 7-foot high pagoda, and plants that look like containers made of blossoms fill out festival fare. Five full-time gardeners, three students, one seasonal and numerous volunteers check each plant daily and water from below by hand when needed.

“There are no insects or disease when the plants come into the display areas. While they are on display there is no rainfall and temperatures are ideal. At first, they are tightly budded, with 65 degree nights and 73 degree days. After they open fully, we drop the temperature to 45 at night and 50 during the day. That lasts for a month," explains Harbage. When the show is over, the mums are composted.

“Mums are a very forgiving plant," Kanamee says. “If they flag because they don't have enough water, you can water them and they recuperate. Once you have petals that are open, you don't want to dry them out. The petals don't recover."