Linda Bradley 2/12/24 Linda Bradley 2/12/24

Heirloom Chrysanthemums

In recent years there has been a growing interest in heirloom chrysanthemums. We’re not talking about potted mums that you can find in the fall at every garden center, but rather the more unique, tall, older varieties that have been passed down through generations. These plants pre-date modern hybridization techniques and are the result of natural selection and the passage of time.

Heirloom chrysanthemums have not been especially popular in traditional floristry trends. There was a time when a few varieties were overused and dyed shocking colors. Mums fell out of favor. Many of these beautiful flowers are no longer widely grown.

Fortunately, lots of varieties have been maintained by Chrysanthemum Societies, where plants are grown for show competitions. There is also a company called King’s Mums in Minnesota that has sold a diverse selection of heirloom mums with a wide variety of shapes and colors for many years. Awareness of these heirloom varieties, now grown by local flower farms, has resulted in renewed demand for these flowers.

One reason for their resurgence is their unique bloom time. Heirloom chrysanthemums bloom in late fall, often the last thing to bloom before winter sets in. They need to be protected from hard frost but can withstand the light frosts that we usually get around Halloween. Small flower farms use them for season extension benefits, a late crop to harvest and sell before winter sets in. They make wonderful Thanksgiving arrangements.

Heirloom mums are also an incredibly long-lasting cut flower. It is not unusual for them to have more than two weeks of vase life.

Since these plants are the result of natural selection, there are no patents on them. They can be freely reproduced. Chrysanthemums grow easily from rooted cuttings so this is the most common way to pass them along. Harmony Harvest farm in Weyers Cave Virginia is one of the farms that is taking the lead on expanding chrysanthemum production. They were written up in Southern Living for their efforts. In 2022, a collector of heirloom chrysanthemums passed away and the grower’s wife donated the entire inventory to Harmony Harvest.

Last year I grew 4 varieties as a trial and I am also convinced that the world needs to experience more of these flowers! They are categorized by their shape and by bloom time. There are early, mid and late blooming varieties. The actual time may vary based on where you are located.

Here in the Columbia area, I only grew the late varieties, which started blooming the last week in October. Early bloomers could start in the first week of October, and mid-season bloomers may start in the middle of the month. We are growing across all bloom times this year. If all goes well, some of these will be included in our fall bouquet subscriptions.

We will also have a special offering in mid-November, just in time for Thanksgiving. More to come on that.

Growing

If you are a grower and interested in trying these beauties in your garden, you can order chrysanthemum cuttings in the spring. Harmony Harvest (https://www.hhfshop.com), Three Porch Farm (https://3porchfarm.com/) in Comer Georgia and Clara Joyce Flowers (https://www.clarajoyceflowers.com/mum-cuttings) in Illinois are three of the bigger farms that sell them.

Other Farm Notes

Things are beginning to shape up at the farm for spring. We continue to see good progress with most of the early flowers. We’re busy getting seeds started and ordering what we need to get through the season. We got some new tables for the processing shed just in time for our new Forcing Bulb class. This time of year, we hold the classes indoors.

We’re using these rainy days to get caught up on lots of planning. It is exciting to look out through the year and organize our growing plans to make sure we have flowers blooming every week.

And I have been wanting to tell you about the Heirloom Mums for awhile and am just now getting it down in the blog. So, I hope you enjoy and also hope you have a very happy Valentine’s Day! We don’t have flowers this week, but a subscription or a bulb class seat might be the ticket. Godspeed.

Linda

Linda Bradley 10/31/23 Linda Bradley 10/31/23

October on the Farm - Dahlias and Mums

Farm Update

Happy Halloween!

Farmers are surprisingly busy in the fall. Seasons converge. We’re busy wrapping up the fall harvest, getting the beds prepared and planted for spring, getting the spring bulb sales delivered and preparing for our holiday offerings too.

Temperatures are forecasted to be in the low 30’s at night this week, which is pretty much a guarantee that the dahlias and the rest of the summer annuals will be done. This is the average first frost date for our area, so statistically speaking, we are on our normal schedule.

Here are a few highlights from our fall season.

Dahlias

The dahlias were a lot of fun to grow this year, and we hope that you enjoyed some of them. We doubled the number of tubers we planted and grew several new (to us) varieties along with some old favorites. It is always fun to find something new and beautiful, that does well in our warm climate. Here are some of our favorites for the year.

Clockwise from top left: Totally Tangerine, Mr. Franz, Genova, Labyrinth Two Tone

Totally Tangerine is an anemone form dahlia. The plant is small, so good for a pot. It produces a large number of 2 inch blooms.

Mr. Franz is a waterlily form. The blooms are 4-6 inches and the petals are peach and yellow.

Genova is a small ball form dahlia. The plant produces many flowers. The size makes them easy to use in arrangements.

Labyrinth Two Tone is a lavender and white dinnerplate dahlia. They are typically smaller than a dinnerplate in our summer heat. This makes them good for arranging. This is a recent release from the same breeder that brought us the Labyrinth dahlia.

This last one is called Babylon Bronze. It does well in our heat. As the season’s days got shorter, it grew much larger and had petals that were more yellow than bronze. These are hard to use in bouquets or arrangements, so I took them home! A few blooms for the farmer to enjoy at the end of the season.

We’re trying to keep a few dahlias going in the hoop house, so we’ll see how that works out.

We will be selling dahlia tubers in early 2024. This will give us room in the field to add a few new ones and expand the quantities of the ones that do well in our climate.

Heirloom Mums

This year we are also growing heirloom mums for the first time. They generally bloom after the dahlias and their blooms are triggered by shorter days. Heirloom mums come in many shapes and sizes. We’ve just started with three to see how they do. So far, so good. This one is called Crimson Tide. More updates will be coming on these interesting flowers.

Spring Blooming Bulbs

Thank you for those who have ordered their bulbs. We are getting things delivered/ready for farm pick up as the bulbs arrive from Holland. Shipping from Holland is a long and complex process, so the providers are not the best at keeping a predictable schedule. We have everything now except for the tulips. They are supposed to arrive next week, so we will get them to everyone as soon as we can.

The most important thing to remember is that we have the luxury of planting all of these now through January in our glorious climate. Just keep the bulbs cool and dry until you are ready to get them into the ground.

Holiday Shop

This year we will have bulbs, bulb gardens and greens bouquets available for purchase on the website and at our holiday open house at the farm on December 2nd.

In addition to a large variety of amaryllis in various sizes, we will have extra-large paperwhites. These are 17cm, which means that they are some of the largest available. Larger bulbs provide larger and more flowers. Here is a photo showing a standard daffodil bulb next to one of the paperwhite bulbs.

More information to come in our next email update.

Heirloom Chrysanthemums