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Chrysanthemums need attention through the year, writes
Kiran Narain
Chrysanthemums of different shapes and colours will soon be exhibited in local chrysanthemum shows in major cities of North India. Chrysanthemums now come in various sizes and shapes, right from the giant incurved globe ones to cascading varieties. Chrysanthemums, which have been grown in China since 500 B.C. and different varieties of which have been developed in Japan and other places, has always been close to the garden lover’s heart as it needs a complete cycle of attention month by month through the whole year. It produces excellent cut flowers too. It may be a good idea to buy a few pots of different varieties now and use them as mother plants for the next season after enjoying their beauty for some time. You may label them according to colour and shape such as button, pompon, Korean, cascading (small varieties) and incurved, incurving, reflexed, spoon, anemone, quilled and spider from large flower sections. The labels should be marked with permanent markers. A good idea would be to paint numbers 1, 2, 3, etc. on the pot and note down the variety against them in a notebook. After the flowers have faded, the soil in the pot is top-dressed with a rich mixture of manure and loam. The stem, which has finished flowering is cut down to about 2.5 cm above the soil level. The plant is well looked after till the next season. The suckers are either separated and planted to develop in a fresh potting mixture as individual plants or made into cuttings and potted by stages. For cuttings, stout terminal cuttings about 7.5 cm to 10 cm long are taken from them. The lower leaves from each cutting are removed and the upper leaves shortened in length. In North India, they are started towards the end of June or early July. The cuttings can be put into shallow boxes, beds or pots containing a mixture of two parts sand, one part well crushed and sieved leaf mould and one part loam. It would be ideal if the soil for the cuttings could be sterilised. Dipping a centimetre of the base of the cutting into a rooting hormone mixture encourages profuse rooting. Watering is done once or twice a day to keep it moist. In about three to five weeks the cuttings are ready for transplantation. The transplanting should be done preferably in the evening and potted plants should be kept in the shade for about week and watered regularly. Once you have your own rooted cuttings or have bought them, pot them by stages i.e. first in 10 cm, 15 cm, 22.5 cm and finally in 30 cm pots for getting the best exhibition blooms. For convenience, you may start the rooted cuttings in 25 or 30cm size with a potting mixture of two parts farm yard manure, two parts leaf mould, one part wood ashes, one part coarse sand a quarter part bone meal, one part charcoal and three part fibrous loam. The mixture may be passed through a one centimetre mesh sieve and the coarse siftings used for the bottom layer of the pots and the finer soil above. Potting should be done in such a way that top two to four cm is left unfilled so that topdressings of the compost can be done later. A thin layer of oil cake sprinkled over the soil in the pot and allowed to be dissolved slowly with irrigation water is advisable. By end of September, the top vacant space in the pot may be filled with a top dressing of compost. Fortnightly applications of a weak doze of liquid manure are also good. Stopping and disbudding: The first pinching is done when the plant has eight to 10 leaves. This is done by removing the terminal portion, so as to leave six to seven leaves on the plant. The laterals develop rapidly from below the cut. Small flowered chrysanthemums are allowed to grow naturally in a bushy form while the large flowered ones need disbudding to have single buds for show on the centre stem or three stems. Disbudding starts around October when several flower buds form at the end of each shoot and also in the axils of the upper leaves. Rub off all the buds except the centre ones with the finger and thumb. This should be done early when the central buds are as big as a pea. To keep the chrysanthemums neat and tidy, they can be staked as soon as there are three shoots after pinching, and small flowered ones (except the cascade type) are to be staked on the edges of the pots. If grown in ground, it has to be made sure that it is well dug to about 40 cm and is well drained as heavy wet soils will make chrysanthemums more disease prone. For any aphids, chrysanthemum midge or lead miner regular spray of 0.1 per cent captan or nicotine at intervals of 15 days is advisable.
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