Annual Chrysanthemums: Varieties And Cultivation

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Read the previous part of the article: ← A brief excursion into the history of chrysanthemums

Biological features of chrysanthemums

Summer chrysanthemum

The genus chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum) belongs to the Asteraceae family (formerly Asteraceae) and includes more than 140 species of herbaceous, semi-shrub, annual and perennial plants. Translated from Greek, chrysanthemum means "golden flower".

Annual chrysanthemums are native to the Mediterranean. Their first description was found in the writings of the ancient Roman physician Dioscorides in the 1st century BC. e., since then, their species and varieties have been successfully grown both for cutting and as a garden, pot culture. These flowers are one of the most unpretentious, easily propagated by seeds by early sowing directly into the ground or before winter, they bear fruit perfectly.

Gardener's guide

Plant nurseries Stores of goods for summer cottages Landscape design studios

If you once sowed an annual chrysanthemum (no matter what species and variety), rest assured that in the spring of next year, in the garden or in the flower garden, there will certainly be several self-seeding seedlings that will bloom before all others in the middle of summer.

The following species and their varieties are most often grown:

Chrysanthemum keeled

Chrysanthemum keeled (Chrysanthemum carinatum) is native to North Africa. The plant is up to 70 cm high, erect, highly branched. Leaves are gray-green, fleshy, doubly pinnate with linear lobes. Single-basket inflorescences or 2-10 on lateral branches, 5-7 cm in diameter.

Corollas of reed flowers are usually tricolor (white, yellow with a reddish or whitish limb), for which chrysanthemum is often called tricolor. Flowering time from late June to late October. The fruit is a ribbed achene with a fly. Its varieties are interesting: Atrokokcineum with a simple carmine-red inflorescence; Cockade - with a simple white inflorescence and colored rings (yellow, red, red-brown), 5-6 cm in diameter; Nordstern - with a simple white inflorescence with a red ring, 5.5-7 cm in diameter. All varieties are used for cutting and flower beds.

Chrysanthemum multistem

Chrysanthemum multicaule (Chrysanthemum multicaule) native to Algeria. Low-growing bushy plant 18-25 cm high with numerous erect shoots. Leaves are dense, coarsely toothed, varied in shape. Inflorescences are bright yellow with a diameter of 2.5-3 cm. Flowering is very abundant, from mid-June to October. They use it for borders, in a pot culture.

Sowing chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum segetum) up to 60 cm high with a simple, less often weakly branched stem. Leaves are sessile, stalk-enveloping, usually whole, oblong, large-toothed along the edge. The inflorescences are monochromatic, golden yellow, medium-sized. Blooms profusely from mid June to September. Varieties: Gloria (light yellow corolla), Zebra (reddish yellow), Eldorado (canary yellow).

Crowned chrysanthemum Crowned

chrysanthemum, or vegetable (Chrysanthemum coronarium) with a powerful branched stem 70-100 cm high. Leaves are sessile, lanceolate. Inflorescences are solitary, 2-8 on lateral branches, with white or yellow ligulate flowers. They give abundant self-seeding. Flowering from mid-June to September and more. Varieties: Goldkrone - semi-double, light yellow corolla; Nivea - white; Orion is yellow; The tetrocomet is golden yellow.

Chrysanthemum vegetable is a rare spicy vegetable plant, very popular in Japan, China, Vietnam, USA. In Russia it is little known as a vegetable plant, more as a decorative plant with carved "carrot" leaves. The nutritional value of vegetable chrysanthemum is the high content of beta-carotene (provitamin A) in its flowers and leaves. The use of foods rich in beta-carotene increases the resistance of our body to adverse environmental conditions, improves immunity, protects against the appearance of many diseases, including cancer.

Vegetable chrysanthemum contains many trace elements, salts of potassium, calcium, iron, phosphorus; vitamins B1, B12, C. In boiled leaves, the content of vitamin C is reduced by 4-5 times.

Sowing chrysanthemum

In Chinese folk medicine, the leaves of this chrysanthemum are prescribed for migraines, dry flowers - to improve appetite (like many bitterness). Vegetable chrysanthemum leaves have a specific taste, delicate pleasant aroma with a slight bitterness.

It is used as a spice in cooking. In Japanese tradition, topped chrysanthemum flowers are soaked in vinegar with sugar, then added to dishes as a piquant spice. Chrysanthemum petals are used to flavor tea, wine, liqueurs. Young leaves are added in small quantities to salads, soups, make a paste as a seasoning, dried for the winter to enrich the taste of various dishes and vitamin supplements to them.

Young leaves are finely chopped into salads with lettuce, spinach, chives for a pungent taste. Edible flowers decorate dishes. Leaves are added to soups, omelets, casseroles. A side dish is also prepared from them: chopped leaves are stewed in a pan with water and vegetable oil until boiling, served with meat, fish, omelet.

Lateral branches of the stem are well leafy. To obtain early greens, seeds are sown on seedlings in the second decade of April in a peat-humus mixture with the addition of sand. Some of the seedlings are planted in a greenhouse, and some in open ground in mid - late May. Thinned plants are eaten as a spicy addition to salads from other vegetables.

They are planted often, after 10-15 cm. Young leaves and tops of shoots are plucked on a salad, from which the plant actively bushes. Young axillary shoots are also used for food. More mature axillary shoots can be rooted in water, roots are formed near the cut. Rooted cuttings can be kept in pot culture and at home during the winter with additional lighting. It is important to maintain moderate watering and good drainage in the pot.

It is known that the germination rate of freshly harvested chrysanthemum seeds a month after harvest is 10%, after 2 months - 37%, after 3 months - 44%. Naturally, it is more profitable to do early spring crops.

Chrysanthemum agrotechnics

Vegetable

chrysanthemum Annual chrysanthemums need well-lit areas with fertile, drained soil. They do not like waterlogging. Propagated by direct sowing in open ground in May as soon as the soil is ready. The sowing area is filled once with compost (bucket per 1 m2) and the AVA powder form with nitrogen - a new brand of complete long-acting fertilizer throughout the season (3-5 g, or 0.5-1 teaspoon per 1 m2 along the grooves).

You can mix the seeds with sand and AVA powder and sow with this mixture. This form of AVA has a composition N: P: K = 10:40:15 and all the necessary trace elements, does not contain chlorine. It promotes active growth of plants in the initial period and abundant flowering in due time. Balanced nutrition helps plants withstand stressful outdoor conditions and increases seed germination. Works in soil throughout the year.

Seedlings appear on the 5-15th day. The grown seedlings are thinned out, they are planted in a permanent place after 25-30 cm. It is worth throwing a pinch of AVA with nitrogen into the holes.

Read the next part. Perennial chrysanthemums: varieties and cultivation →

Chrysanthemum is Japan's favorite flower:

• Part 1: A brief excursion into the history of chrysanthemums

• Part 2: Annual chrysanthemums: varieties and cultivation

• Part 3: Perennial chrysanthemums: varieties and cultivation