The bloom is back: Longwood Garden’s 1,000-flower chrysanthemum is almost ready for the spotlight

• By Claude Thompson
• October 13, 2023

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. Yet next week, the mega mum should take its place in the spotlight.

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.

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.