Pink Belgian Hardy Mum

Belgian Hardy Mum
Chrysanthemum 'Milano Pink'
(kris-AN-the-mum)

Chrysanthemum Buds

Belgian Hardy Mum
Chrysanthemum 'Milano Pink'
(kris-AN-the-mum)

Yesterday while picking up a few mums at Valley View Greenhouses I took a couple of pictures of their crop of mums. They really have some nice looking plants this year. Unlike last week when how much color the mums were showing was important this time I got some that the buds were just cracking open. The soft pink of the first one is not really what many would consider a fall color but I got one anyways. The blush color will contrast nicely with some purple Asters in the garden, hopefully.

This second shot was kind of a depth of field experiment. It didn’t come out exactly how I wanted and will need a reshoot. The idea is okay but the technical aspects need a little work.


The stove is heating up, so to speak, at work. It looks like the fall season is going to be okay.

Chrysanthemum ‘Colina Orange’

Hardy Mum
Chrysanthemum ‘Colina Orange’

Out of all of the mums that we planted this year ‘Colina Orange’ was the best. There are several factors that go into that assessment and remember that it is just a local observation. These mums bloomed the longest and best of any of the about 20 cultivars that we used. They went on for many weeks in both containers and in the ground. The color was a nice shade of orange and that seemed to fit the season well. One plant that I had at home was mixed with a ‘Colina Red’ Chrysanthemum and that was just perfect.

‘Colina Orange’ is a mid-season blooming Belgian type of mum. That is to say it started blooming in mid-season and lasted almost as long as the late-season ones. The flowers didn’t look bad after they faded. My only complaint would be that the flowers were a little small but that is minor (can’t have everything, you know). This year for the first time in a long time I decided to try save some of the mums. ‘Colina Orange ’ was one of the cultivars selected for the over wintering test. The mums were removed from their containers and planted around the second week of November. We used wood chips and leaves to almost completely cover the plant. They will have to be removed in the spring. ‘Blizzard’ was another one I tried to save. Let’s see if they are really ‘Hardy Mums’. As a gardener I have to optimistic or I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed in the morning but there is a tinge of pessimism creeping in here with regards to the mums.

This picture was taken in late fall and kind of represents the depth of field I would like to get on more of my flower pictures. The flower is Willow leafed Sunflower (Helianthus salicifolius 'First Light'). It did really well in the garden and ‘First Light’ is a nice cultivar that was developed by Dr. Keith Hammett of New Zealand. It stays more compact and shorter than the species.


What a crazy weather day we had yesterday. If anyone is reading this from the eastern United States you know what I mean. There were several inches of rain and the temperature was hovering at 34 degrees. We dodged a real bullet because about 20 miles north of here there was a pretty big ice storm that knocked out the power and caused a lot of tree limbs to fall. After a cold weekend it is going to be in the 50’s next week, which will be perfect as a couple of customers have called with a few items that we forgot to take care of for the winter. We are on a very limited part-time schedule now.

Today I have to deliver the last of the holiday plants we give out as presents to the people whose gardens we take care of. Just two 12-inch Poinsettias (a ‘Burgundy’ and a ‘Vision of Grandeur’) and an Orchid. The Poinsettias are huge and really full. We bought them at Chadds Ford Greenhouses in Pennsylvania. It was a very cool place (they don’t have a website or I would link to it) that had a really nice assortment of Poinsettia cultivars and other seasonal plants. I wish they were closer I would definitely buy plants from them.

Mum Season

Time to kick off the Mum Season. This is two of the 36 I purchased yesterday. Twenty-one were in 4.5-inch pots, which are really small for a Chrysanthemum, so maybe those don’t count. The little rose garden we tend to was looking a little rough for under planting so we took out the Cosmos, Amaranthus and Violets that had kind of seeded in and used the small mums along the front border. Hopefully they will form a little carpet of color. For the larger gaps in the middle I was able to get some nice hybrid Frikart’s aster (Aster x frikartii 'Monch').


That is probably one of my favorite Asters. The flowers are quite classy looking and the plant stays relatively compact. It is a hybrid between Aster amellus x Aster thomsonii developed by Karl Frikart in 1920. This Aster is hardy to USDA Zone 5 and is less susceptible to powdery mildew than most species of Aster. They were just starting to show some color. Most of the Mums were like that also. Sometimes if you buy them this early they don’t last the whole season and have to be replaced. I snuck in a couple of flats of purple Pansies and the area looked a whole lot better, it had gotten a little messy.


The yellow mum is Chrysanthemum 'Novare' and is a Belgian Hardy Mum. Though I sometimes wonder exactly where the ‘hardy’ mums are hardy. Only about 2 in 10 come back for me. I have had slightly better success in the last couple of years by not cutting off the dead tops at the end of the season. I have been putting some leaves over them also. Still I wouldn’t exactly rate them as hardy. When I worked at the nursery we used to call them ‘hardly’ mums. The red mum is ‘Camino’ which I couldn’t find any references to.

Belgian Hardy Mum

Belgian Hardy Mum

Short post today as I am tired and don’t have much time. I have a backlog of paperwork to do and since I am one helper down have to get into the trenches myself (the horror of that). We are moving some 8 foot shrubs that are getting too big for the foundation planting and adding some new drainage as the area behind the plants has sunk over the years allowing water to get into the basement. I wanted to share this Chrysanthemum that I saw at White Flower Farm a couple of weekends ago. It is a Belgian Hardy Mum, which you can learn a little about by
clicking here.


These types of colors seem to be ‘in’ as I have been seeing a lot of plants like this. I guess it does have a certain fall look to it. I marked this one down as ‘Castilio’ but I don’t think that is it. It is kind of a cross between a spider and cushion Mum if that is possible. I never seem to know the cultivar names of the mums and they also seem to change every year. If you find a couple you like chances are you won’t be able to get them the following year.


Overall my Mums are doing well this year. I guess I got them at the right time because sometimes they don’t seem to last too long.

Blogger seems to have some uploading problems today so I tried using my Photobucket account to post the pictures. Sorry in advance if they are not coming through.