If you are fortunate enough to locate the out-of-print book "The Art of the Chrysanthemum", by Tameji Nakajima, try to acquire it. It is an excellent reference & contains a wealth of info on mum (particularly bonsai) culture. A few things I have found: - They will require your vigilance & attention. It's easy for the plant to "get away" from you if you're not attentive to pinching, and fertilizing. Potting up is a regular requirement as well. - It is best to decide on the form you wish to develop when the plant is a cutting. "Looking for the tree" in the plant will probably leave you unsatisfied with the results. - Aphids will find your plant, so be prepared. - A good source for information is King's Mums, see link below. Their site has lots of growing tips for general culture. Pay particular attention to the "gnomes". They're what you'll want for bonsai. Choose style according to plant habit. You can also order a print-out of several pages with Ken's suggestions for improved success with bonsai culture. - Best results will be had with plants that are from late summer or Fall cuttings, wintered in a greenhouse, trained to bonsai in a single growth cycle and displayed the following Fall. - Be happy if the plants overwinter for you w/o extensive die-back. Good luck Al Here is a link that might be useful: If you click on me, I'll take you straight to King's site.

rouge - It is interesting to see how these are evaluated across the pond, but I wonder how that translates to our very different climate? I noticed in the report, it was mentioned their trial garden experienced one of the lowest winter temps in recent years: -17 C which equals around 1.4 F. As we all know, that's not considered very cold around here. I also noticed they mentioned a couple of pest problems I have never heard of. Come to think of it, I can't recall mums in my garden having any issues with pests other than rabbits. Still, an interesting read. Of the ones awarded in their garden trials, I have one - Ruby Mound. It is a nice plant and for a long time was one of my favorites, but I've discovered others I like better. Kevin

I used to grow them commercially, but haven't done so in about two years. Yes, they can be rejuvenated. Like with so many other perennials, the crown eventually becomes woody and often the stems coming from them will splay out revealing the dead and woody material in the center of the clump. If you have a non-patented variety, you can easily start cuttings from them. If you don't want to bother with that, you can lay one branch of them down and French layer it with soil over it where it should easily root along the stem. Next spring, just sever it from the mother plant and plant it elsewhere. If you are lucky enough to have had a plant who has developed a multi-stemmed clump, with roots you can sever and divide, just do it. I have found the newer varieties are bred to have multiple, smaller blooms. They cover the foliage like a carpet and are lovely, but they also tend to splay out when they bloom just from the weight of the blooms and can look unthrifty. Proper pinching can help them have stem strong enough to hold them in place. The most important thing in overwintering a mum is to make sure its roots don't rot. That's why sandy soil is sometimes an advantage. But, I overwinter mine in clay soil, usually without ammending it. I tend to plant mine on a slope so that when the soil is saturated, it eventually drains downward and the roots of the mums aren't sitting in a pool at the bottom of it all.

Yeah, I can do that. I was just hoping someone here had been cheap like me and wanted to try that variety from seeds. I ordered them from hazzards greenhouse in michigan, but I've seen the same seeds sold on other sites with exactly the same finished size reported, and actually even one picture, the same one on the internet. I didn't know if the size problem was cultural from my care, or if the seed company was just making up a size on the actual finished plants. You know sometimes short plants are sometimes stated as taller if it's what customers want, and taller plants are sometimes stated as shorter than they really finish if it's what the consumers want at the time. All the Amish around here use belgium mums from cuttings. I haven't heard of a one that uses seed-grown--because I kind of asked around this summer when I was there picking up some green beans at an auction.