chrysanthemums

Thanks, all, especially janerowena. If flowers are going to come on side shoots anyway, think I'll just do one "pinch" to stop getting spindly.

oh you have brought back memories my lovely DH used to grow and show the Giant Chrysanthemums, and enter them in shows, in fact I have just recently stuck one of his Chrysanthemum Silver medals on the Arbour I have erected, the other Silver medals are being given to Grandsons and other member... and yes earwigs a big prob...we used to put Vaseline on the canes..to stop earwigs climbing up.also once the bud is showing a tiny bit of colour you can put what they call Flower bags on and sort of blow the bag up, place on the bud so it is inside and tie it with twist tie, this keeps out the bugs etc and blackfly is a big prob with Chrysanths..good luck

my memories are like yours coolgran, that wonderful smell stays with me till this day (60 year later)so much so that this year i have decide i am going to concentrate on growing them, fingers crossed

My father used to grow the big pom pom headed chrystanths and he'd do some in his greenhouse to get them as perfect as possible.... oh the wonderful smell when you opened the door and stepped into the greenhouse.

My overwhelming memory, that chrysanthemums bring instantly to mind along with dahlias, is earwigs!

From earwigs and rain!

This made me smile with the memory of our neighbour when I was a child.He grew the most amazing gold winning xanths and dahlias. At one point in each season it looked like he was growing paper bags as each bloom was sealed in a bag to protect it.

If it's show ones that you are interested in, then this is a good place to start.

www.gardeningdata.co.uk/flowers/chrysanthemums.php

Although they won't be anything like as big as the show chrysanths - just bigger than normal, if it's the normal perennial varieties you are talking about.

If it's a new young plant just left then yes, it would be tall and spindly and have one slightly larger flower at the top - but it wouldn't be alone, smaller flowers would still grow at the sides.

If you want a nice bushy plant with lots of flowers, then pinch out the tip.

If you want one huge flower, then pinch out everything BUT the tip.

Years ago when training it was my delightful task to pick off millions of tips to make plants bushier. It used to send me cross-eyed, because they were grown so close together.