i can't wait to see what (if?) i get for seedlings. the photos you posted are wonderful as well as very interesting in the variety of seedlings produced. i bought my sheffield pink mum from greenhouse gallery in lebanon this summer primarily because i thought it was mislabeled and was looking for feverfew (tanacetum parthenum) and the foliage looked a lot like what i remembered when i had it in another garden in iowa. i read about the sheffield pink online after i bought it and decided tho it wasn't what i had hoped, it might be even better. i was stunned when it first started blooming-i called the flower color orangish pink tho now they've faded a bit to pink or even nearly white. i LOVE it! now to find out i may have all sorts of new cultivars next year is an added bonus. good thing i've planted it where it can spread to a bigger area-it's nicely in among some purple oxalis that have managed to return for 4 years now so it looks really nice there.

Horticulture in the UK is still somewhat intertwined with class (and, to a lesser degree, taste) and while dahlias benefited from Christopher Lloyds endless championing of them in his tropical beds and borders at Dixter, poor old chrysanthemums have never managed to jump the shark into 'respectable' horticulture, still remaining a deeply proletarian flower, beloved of working class northerners with their flat caps, whippets and shows - sometimes even displayed in beer bottles. Of course, as I am relentlessly prolier than thou, with a massive chip on my shoulders, I have to wonder why they have not really caught on for me either (unlike pinks, auriculas, gooseberries and other working class fripperies) - the only chrysanths I have ever grown have been the little annuals - c.segetum and c.carinatum - even those early pyrethrums have failed to gain much traction. Whilst I can be as open-mouthed in awe as anyone over the thousand flower specimens grown by those Japanese with their little scissors and endless pinching, I guess I will be getting along without them for the forseeable future since even this promoter of bad taste will be unmoved by mums in a woodland.

I have a golden yellow with large (3-4") blooms that starts early. I've had it for years, but not certain of the name. I know the tag said "King's" something. I thought it was "King's Ransom" but the only references to that said it was cream and pinkish. It may have been "King's Gold" but I can't find anything about that. What I do know is that it's a gorgeous golden yellow, has very large, full blooms, and starts early and keeps going.

Wow, look at those rocks. I believe someone had a little help getting those into place! Rouge interesting yours are earlier this year. I was thinking the same for my own late chrysanthemum and now it makes a little more sense that the warm weather had something to do with it. I'll take it!