"The show must go on"

Here at Longwood , we always look forward to our annual Chrysanthemum Festival for so many grounds … it ’s a opportunity for us not only to put on a colorful show of rare and dear cultivar , but also a way for us to stretch our horticultural limits and proudly share with you the fruits of that undertaking . We take more than a year to prepare for each Chrysanthemum Festival , growing and nurturing our large specialty chrysanthemums into imaginative shapes and forms , all the while caring for a change of chrysanthemum cultivars … all requiring ceaseless attention . While this year has most definitely thrown us some curveballs — from changing how we had to work to have to abridge the phone number of Horticulture squad fellow member able to work on - site — the challenges of this yr have not thrown us off of our horticultural game … and we ’re are beyond excited to share this year ’s display with you ( include an all - new feature ! ) .

by Jim Sutton

As in years past , our Thousand Bloom Chrysanthemum — one of our most prized horticultural achievements — is taking center leg . This undivided chrysanthemum industrial plant , grown over a point of 17 month and more than 2,000 stave hours to reach its astounding size of it of 12 feet blanket and 8 groundwork marvellous , features 1,362 sunny yellow , uniform Chrysanthemum x morifolium ‘ Susono - no - Hikari ’ prime . To create the Thousand Bloom Chrysanthemum , we follow a precise technique that originated in China and expanded to Japan several hundred years ago , to train a single chrysanthemum plant to produce as many utterly placed blooms as potential .

Known in Japan as Ozukuri , this technique requires only a single peak on the ending of each individual arm , have in mind none of the flowers on the sides of the branch can be used to make this enormous shape . As buds get down to imprint , we disbud the Chrysanthemum morifolium , which involves taking all of the smaller side bud off and allowing only the main center bud to persist in to grow . As the plant grow , it requires punctilious pinching ( or remove the shoot tip ) , which help new branches form below the pinch , as well as tying the plant to its framework . Throughout the process , our staff disbud nearly 10,000 tiny flower buds in ordering to have just one everlasting big bloom on each stem .

About a calendar month before the beginning of each Chrysanthemum Festival , we set out final flower placement in the custom - made dome - shaped frame , arranging the flower to make certain each row is placed dead in concentric rings , and each flower is place in a support to properly position it . After we fill in the cognitive operation of placing the flowers , we can answer just how many blooms we achieved . And yes … our squad has already started training the Thousand Bloom plant for next year ’s display .