Jeff M. 1/2025
The months of May and June are the main times to decide what you want at bloom time: as disbuds or profusion of blooms.
Everything comes down to pinching and the retention of lateral or branches.
The chart was originally published in Sunset Magazine, March 1976 issue along with an extensive article featuring growing giant chrysanthemums and how the average home gardener can have comparable results. It has since been updated by Western Australian Chrysanthemum Society in a bright newly colored photo you see today.
If you want the largest blooms, you would follow the top half of the diagram. After the 1st pinching (date varies based on your location and growing season), retaine only three or four laterals and remove all the rest. It is recommended to save the upper top branches over the harder woody lower branches.
As the season progresses you remove all the extra sprouting laterals from the leaf axil (where the leaf meets the main stem). When buds are large enough to remove or disbud, you will gently roll out, pinch, or remove all the smaller buds and leafy lateral growth, leaving only one bud per stem. Some bud can be a little hard to find, but with a little experience, it will become easier to identify.
If you want a profusion of smaller blooms for cutting or color in the fall landscape. You follow the lower half of the chart. Here, you do the 1st pinch at the same time, but do not remove the laterals or branches: allow everything that sprouts from the leaf axils to grow. Generally, you allow all the buds to form and do not remove any. Although removing a few buds from the cluster will help open the spray of blooms and give you a more open cluster of blooms for cutting.
In both methods, staking, tying, and fertilizing are necessary and highly recommended. You can grow either in pots or plant directly in well prepared soil. Weekly or bi-weekly fertilization is a must, along with insect control of your preference.
If you grow directly in the open yard, you must provide some kind of protection from rain and early fall frosts of your blooms. If growing in pots. The pots can be moved out of the weather and frost, then moved back out to finish blooming.
Most shows are held toward the end of October and early November. If you have never entered a few blooms. You are missing out of the pleasure of sharing your blooms with the visiting public. Afraid to enter? Or do not like your blooms to be judged. You can always enter for display only. Just fill out your entry tag as DISPLAY ONLY. Of course, it is always a joy to get your first ribbon and potentially the best bloom or plant of the show. Remember a youth won the best bloom at the National Show last fall in Las Vegas…...if he could do it so can you!