Monday, September 26, 2016

Christopher's Mum

This lovely pink mum is currently available at my favorite local independent garden center because of me. Last year I got tired of waiting for a killing frost and cut them down when they were still quite green and not sure what was going on. I took them to the nursery and said try to root these. I know it is way late, but give it a try. They had already bloomed and been deadheaded. The client has a deadheading fetish I regularly sneer at.

He got an amazing take on the cuttings and this year I have been buying back great numbers of the pink mum with a white eye that was called Christopher's mum because nobody knew who it was. There is an aster at the nursery called County Park Aster.

I feel quite certain it already has a name and a quick search on the interwebs would reveal whose glory I am butting in on. Off I go.





















That didn't take long. This is Chrysanthemum x rubellum 'Clara Curtis'. We have the same initials anyway. I did plant one in my garden several years ago and it was swallowed up by the Lush. These hardy mums will grow fine for me. but they can't handle the competition. One day I might have the time for giving such plants the elbow room they need.





















I came home to no cows, praise be and no rain, boo and double boo. We have been shafted. I can not believe that front passed right over us and what we got was less than spit. It is getting scary dry out there. I can only hope the gardens I tend on the other side of the county got a bit more spit.





















This is the driest I have ever seen it in my nine years here and the Tall Flower Meadow blooms on. That is some resilience. The bloom is compromised. I can't expect the blue asters to have the best showing this year. In Bulbarella's garden the blue aster were eaten. A herd of cows sheared off the tops. Damn cows!

Will it ever rain again? Have the cows finally been contained? Will I freak out when I wake up to a low of forty five degrees? These questions and more will be answered as the super dry leaves keep swirling down.


2 comments:

Lisa at Greenbow said...

That is a beautiful mum. It seems that they always offer the same old colors around here.

Sallysmom said...

I have had Clara Curtis here for the last 4 years. I have dug it up when the soil was dry and no rain in the forecast and moved it, and it never missed a beat.