Mum’s The Word
Posted in Horticulture on October 21 2014, by Sonia Uyterhoeven
Sonia Uyterhoeven is NYBG‘s Gardener for Public Education.
We are heading into the final weekend of Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Garden. The show is awash with vivid autumnal color and exotic chrysanthemum blooms in every shape and size imaginable.
For those curious, there are 13 different classes of chrysanthemums. Some of my favorites are the Edo varieties which fall into the last class of mums—Class 13: Unclassified or Exotic. These are the chrysanthemum flower shapes that do not fit into any established category. They often have twisted, bi-color florets that change their shape as they open.
Beyond these, there are many fun and fanciful chrysanthemum flower forms to cover. Chrysanthemums from the Brush and Thistle class look like an artist’s paint brush. Spider mums look like fireworks exploding in the sky. They have long, tubular ray florets that hook or coil at the end. Anemone-type mums have centers that are raised up like a pincushion, and chrysanthemums from the Spoon class have long ray florets with tips that are shaped as their name suggests.