Growing Chrysanthemums to exhibition standard takes many years of experience. However, it is not difficult to produce flowers that you can enjoy in your garden, or for cutting. Just follow this quick guide to get the best from your Chrysanthemums.

Whether you have received your plants via Mail Order or bought them at a show, unpack them as soon as possible and pot into a 9cm (3.5 inch) pot. Use a good quality compost and keep just moist, but do not over-water.

You must protect your plants from any frost.

Once the plants have filled this pot with roots, depending on the variety, follow one of the steps below:

1. If you have early or mid-season flowering varieties, these can be planted out into the garden. Pick a sunny position with well-drained soil. Chrysanthemums like a rich soil so dig in plenty of well rotted organic matter before you plant. Support the plants with canes and water well in dry weather. Feed regularly, using our High Nitrogen fertilizer when the plants are in growth and switch to our High Potash fertilizer as soon as flower buds can be seen.

2. If you have late flowering varieties, pot on into a 15cm (6 inch) pot and then, when this pot is full of root, move into a 23cm (9 inch) pot. The plants will need supporting with canes and must be kept evenly watered. As above, feed regularly to get the best results. By the end of October, before the flowers open, move the pots into a cold greenhouse to ensure the blooms are not damaged by the weather.

All plants will need to have the growing tip removed around 14 days after the first potting, this will make the plants send out side shoots. If you are growing spray varieties allow all the side shoots that form to develop. However, if growing bloom types you will need to restrict the number of side shoots to four, at the most, and dis-bud to produce large flowers.

This is a basic guide to growing Chrysanthemums for pleasure. Where certain groups of Chrysanthemums have different requirements, these can be found on the relavant sections webpage. You are always more than welcome to contact us, via email or our Freephone number, for further advice.

We are often asked the secret behind the lush, green foliage on the cut flower that we use in our exhibits. The simple answer is “feeding”. Chrysanthemums require two different types of fertilizer during the growing season to perform to their best. We are now able to offer you the same feed that we use on the nursery, so that you can achieve the excellent results that we do. The fertilizer is sold in convenient sachets, with each sachet making 10 litres (2 gallons) of feed. It should be applied weekly throughout the season. Click here to order yours.

A Chrysanthemum plant, when left to grow naturally, will continue to grow taller until a terminal bud is formed at the tip of the main stem. Side-shoots will then form in the leaf axils. Pinching out, or stopping, is purely a way of hastening the formation of these side-shoots. Simply remove the tip of the plant, leaving 4 - 5 leaves. If, at the time of pinching out, there is any sign of a terminal bud, it is essential to remove a large piece of the plant, sometimes over half.

To produce large flowers, it is essential that each flower stem should be disbudded. This consists of removing all buds and side-shoots, just leaving the terminal (top) bud. Remove side-shoots when they are about 2cms (¾") long. To produce a spray, do the opposite, remove the terminal bud and leave all the side buds.