Longwood Gardens’ Chrysanthemum Festival returns with a 1,363-bloom mega mum [photos, video]

At Longwood Gardens, one chrysanthemum towers taller than a typical “roundy, moundy” plant.

This plant is just getting started.

If the mum makes the cut, a team of horticulturalists will pinch, stretch, stress and coax it to grow, grow and grow even more.

A year from now, if all goes as planned, the single plant will have at least 1,000 blooms and require a security detail to move it into place as the centerpiece of the annual Chrysanthemum Festival.

For now, this plant sits in the sidelines, reminding visitors of the work required to grow the largest mum in North America. This year, the showstopper is a 12-foot-wide chrysanthemum with 1,363 yellow flowers. The mum festival, open through Nov. 16, includes tiny bonsai mums, mums trained into dozens of forms plus a range of mums in form and color.

Here are four things not to miss at Longwood Gardens this fall.

1,000-bloom mum

The chrysanthemum festival may be a fall staple at Longwood yet last year, the opening of the new west conservatory paused the mum show. The fall festival is the most labor-intensive display for growers, who take cuttings, pinch and prune about 4,500 mums, says Kevin Murphy, floriculture manager. Instead, he was able to set aside greenhouse space for the new conservatory’s Mediterranean-theme plants. His team was able to join the push to open the biggest new spaces in a multi-year, $250 million overhaul.

Plans were already underway for this year’s mum show.

“There’s definitely other gardens that do chrysanthemum festivals,” Murphy says, but what makes Longwood’s special is “this level where you see 66 three-dimensional pieces as well as over 4,500 pot mums that were all grown in house.

“That’s one of the reasons we decided to bring it back.” Murphy says. “We just try and keep that tradition alive.”

The thousand-bloom mum takes 18 months to grow. The small mum on display is one of 10 about midway through their training. By the end of the year, staff will pick two to bulk up. A half-dome frame was originally made in-house to display against a wall. This fall, the frame is flipped around to show how a single plant is tied. Thousands of buds are removed to encourage one bloom per branch.

Mums are susceptible to pests and disease. That includes the thousand-bloom mums, which have not gone on display at Longwood a few times over the past decade. Temperature and cleaning changes have since helped keep the huge plants healthy, Murphy says.

Last week, on a day not too rainy, windy or cold, a team carefully wrapped the mega mum in burlap, moved it onto a truck for its one-mile journey from greenhouse to conservatory. The garden was closed that day so there were few visitors in the way. Instead, members of Philadelphia’s Avalon String Band welcomed the yellow mum with a private performance of “Oh Dem Golden Slippers,” often referred to as the unofficial theme song of the Mummers Parade.

Mum forms

Longwood’s growers trained many mums into more than 60 types of botanical sculptures. Some forms, like the pagodas, take a year to graft, train and grow.

“Believe it or not, it takes almost 10 days to two weeks to arrange these just how they are, where we have each flower individually placed along the frame,” Murphy says.

A huge floral arch frames the fern floor, which is filled with mum spirals and snowmen. A new technique stretches the plants wrapping columns to new record height of 8 feet.

A mum “tree” has clusters of mums blooming on a tree harvested from the gardens. There also are shields made of mums, fans made of mums, hanging mum orbs and more mum forms.

Types of mums

Murphy has more than 250 chrysanthemum cultivars in the garden’s collection to consider growing. A few are must-grow for their performance as a thousand-bloom plant or creating a floral tapestry to wrap a giant column. Others are trialed and then selected to grow. Throughout the conservatory grow mums in each of the 13 classes, including big spider mums and small quill mums in traditional yellow plus purple, red, white, pink and orange.

To bloom on time for the three-week show, growers need to trick the plants into flowering early, Murphy says. Each cultivar has a different response time so summer has waves of blackouts for each to meet the bloom-time deadline.

Creating one giant flower on a tall stalk, like one of Murphy’s favorites, Primrose Mt. Shasta, requires a lot of pinching buds.

A mid-size pot has fewer pinches to create three flowers per plant.

Also on top of Murphy’s list is the spray mum, such as the green Kermit pompon in the center walkway. They’re one of the few green flowers on display. With one, maybe two pinches to encourage many blooms, these take a lot less labor, which makes them an easy favorite.

Most of the mums can be found in the east and main conservatories. Staff and interns also created bonsai mums in the newly renovated bonsai workshop.

Other signs of fall

Beyond the chrysanthemum festival are more signs of fall.

Pumpkins and squash decorate places such as the rose arbor and idea garden through Halloween.

Fall foliage changes through the season in full-size trees as well as bonsai in the new bonsai courtyard.

There are also signs of next season. While they’re not illuminated, staff started installing lights for the Christmas display (Nov. 21-Jan. 11) around Labor Day.

Want seasonal gardening articles and tips sent to your inbox weekly? Sign up for our Gardening newsletter here.

Entertainment

Eastland Alpacas to host its open house event over next 2 weekends

• MICKAYLA MILLER | Staff Writer

Entertainment

Meet Jude, the steer who inspired a new mural in Lancaster city just in time for his birthday [photos]

• SARAH NICELL | Staff Writer

Home & Garden

Explore 7 places on Columbia’s Halloween House Tour, including the 'My Haunted Manor' house [photos]

• ERIN NEGLEY | Staff Writer

Home & Garden

Pumpkin Palooza returns to Hershey Gardens [photos]

• BLAINE SHAHAN | Staff Photographer