CHRYSANTHEMUMS.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19785, 25 November 1929, Page 8

CHRYSANTHEMUMS.

" TAKING THE BUD." HOW TO GROW BIG BLOOMS. (Contributed.) Of the many amateur gardeners who grow chrysanthemums in their gardens probably 95 per cent, of them have not even an elementary knowledge of how blooms such as are seen at our shows tare made to attain such proportions. The chrysanthemum, by reason of its flowering at a time when garden flowers are exceedingly scarce, is one of our most generally grown flowers, but as already stated, only a small percentage of the growers understand the principles upon which, with very little trouble, the size of their flowers may be improved almost beyond recognition. The object of these notes, therefore, is to explain to the uninitiated the modus operandi of producing flowers two or three times as large as those grown in the ordinary way, and allowed to bloom as they will. The "main secret of the production of large blooms is in the manipulation of the buds. Each stem of a chrysanthemum plant will, after a period of growth, produce a bud. This bud is the apex of growth of its particular ; stem and causes lateral growths to be produced from below, the bud in the meantime dying out. Assuming that the plant has been making steady growth for five or six weeks a bud will probably appear about September or October. The central growth is thereby stopped, and lateral growths are thrown out. Each new stem in time produces an- j other bud. and the process is repeated. \ Thus the bush-like habit of the plant is produced. Now we come to the crucial stage of the explanation. A great many of the stems will show a bud about the second or third week in February, and these, like their predecessors, will die out if left untouched, and the plants will go on to make fresh buds from four to six weeks j later. These will be "terminal" buds \ that will develop into blooms. The flowers from these terminal buds will be at their best about the first week in May—earlier or later according to the variety. These flowers will thus have taken six or seven weeks from the bud stage to build up the bloom. Now comes the reason for the increase of size. The buds showing about the middle of February, must, by manipulation, be ttye buds to produce the flowers. These February buds will still not produce their flowers until about the first week in May, and will thus have taken eleven or twelve weeks to build up the flowers as against six or seven weeks taken by the terminal buds. The flowers will in consequence foe correspondingly larger. A further increase in size and quality will depend upon a reduction of the number of flowers grown on a plant, feeding, and other cultural methods adopted. The manner of "taking" the February buds to cause thorn to develop into Mooms may be shortly explained. "Taking" the bud means leaving it to produce a flower. Any time after about February Bth that a bud appears it should be left until it is about the size of a grain of wheat. By this time tiny lateral growths will be showing immediately' round the bud. As soon as thesa lateral growths are big enough they should be rubbed out, and as other lateral growths appear lower down they also should be rubbed out. and the bud only being left it goes on to the flower staire. Ti'us only one flower is produced on that stem. "With a little prac-' tice these lateral growths can be, snapped off with the point of the index; finger. This is the operation known as, "rubbing out." '' Those who may be tempted to adopb these methods in order to get largf blooms would do well to nip the point out of the stems about the first week in December. After this stopping, leave as many lateral.-- —say Ko *r three—as are desired to produce flower?, rubbing out all The others. These stems will make steady growth until abaut the middle of February, when the bids to be "taken" should show. /