Mother’s Day this year it seems potted chrysanthemums are back in fashion. Finally, as I have been trying to buy them for years. So I bought five big pots, each of which turned out to be holding five smaller plants. Three different yellows with green centres, a white with green centre, and a pink which contained 2 different pinks.
Bearing in mind that they have probably been stressed to the max to get them all to flower, I took lots of cuttings and cut some of the flowers for the vase. I needn’t have worried – the little plants all looked very perky the next day. I added some yellow wallflowers and a Paper White flower for scent.
The Feijoas are bigger than they ever have been, so I am sure now that the extra rain has made the difference. It’s hard to show scale but the persimmons (grown by our neighbours) in the picture are the size of apples.
We had another 90mm (3.5 inches) of rain last week, followed by a sunny weekend with cold clear nights. It was fabulous weather for planting daffodils and I finished planting the last of 700 daffodils: 300 small bulbs (a bargain from a reputable grower), 100 full sized mixed yellow and white, 100 white and orange or red, 100 Erlicheer, 50 Paper White types, and 50 Indian Maids – a very fragrant jonquil type which I loved last year. Something to look forward to as we slide down toward Winter. Over at Rambling in the Garden there are more Spring celebrations.
Absent Gardener 
Beautiful. Glad you found chrysanthemums to enjoy. They are so undemanding in my area, great for a bold splash of color. Impressive daffodil planting–will be fabulous in spring.
Thank you 🙂 So far the Chrysanthemums I have been able to get have been brilliant plants – a little bit sprawling but covered with flowers, and they last forever in the vase. I hope that these do as well.
Good grief Cath – well done on that mammoth bulb planting session! Hope your chrysanths do well for you – I am planning on trying some of the hardy ones this year – and in the meantime what a pretty vase they make with those shades of yellow
Good luck with your hardy chrysanths, I hope they do well. They seem to be so easy from cuttings that you could probably just have a pot of cuttings sitting in a porch or somewhere over the winter.
I’m glad you found some chrysanthemums; I found them very easy to reproduce by basal cuttings. Mine were all fine in the ground all through our very cold winter (down to minus 8°C). In fact they didn’t even really die back very much. Your cheerful yellows make a very cheerful vase. BTW Very well done with all the bulbs; it almost makes winter bearable when you know you have lots of spring bulbs to look forward too.
Oh that’s good to know. The ones I grew last year spent the winter on the deck in the city, so several degrees warmer than where they will be through the coming winter. However the coldest it got last year was -3C. The other little pink one has gotten huge, so I don’t think it died back much. I hope the daffs are nice. The smaller ones may not flower until the next year.
It’s a beautifully sunny vase, so cheerful. I love those Chrysanths with the quilled petals. You must feel very pleased to have planted all those bulbs, it’s going to look wonderful. I hope you can still stand up.
One of the pink ones is quilled as well. I don’t think I’ve seen those before. I did have a sore back last weekend mainly because I was rushing to dig the area over so I could feel I had finished a section. Carol Deppe in The Resilient Gardener describes this as ‘Completionism’. I’ve been working on resisting it. 🙂 http://www.caroldeppe.com/Resilient%20Gardener.html
Lovely – those shades are so fresh. And well done on getting all those bulbs in – what an accomplishment, and something to look forward to for next spring! 🙂
Thank you, I have planted the Chrysanths in what started as the Orange garden, but is now the Citrus garden – lemon yellows and oranges, along with quite a lot of purple and blue which makes C a bit bemused, but you have to have supporting colours 🙂
Lovely vase. It brightened a rainy day! The yellow is so perky and cheerful. This certainly is the season of hard labor and future visions.
Thank you, I’m glad it brightened your day. It is lasting well and brightening a rainy day here today as well.
Love the jug, I like Mums as well. I expect they are an annual here, but haven’t tried any. Interesting to note how different countries relate to Mums, in Italy they are associated with funerals – here in the US it is Football! Go figure. Your fruit looks divine.
Football! I guess because it’s an Autumn flower. I think that Christina mentioned that Chrysanthemums are only seen in the cemetery in Italy. Last year when I was in Vietnam we saw them a lot as offerings on the boats and in temples, but also on tables in restaurants – so not reserved for sacred places I guess.
A jug of sunshine indeed. You have been busy bulb planting, should think a soak in a hot bath was needed after
Yes, well…we used to use our outside bath more, but it consumes a lot of energy so lately it’s only for long weekends with more people. Hopefully next year we may have an indoor bath heated by a wetback. 🙂
Wetback?
Oh, sorry! That’s what it’s called here when the wood stove has an attachment or a coil which heats the water. The old ones used to be a square metal tank on the back of the stove. 🙂