A Festival of Fabulous Mums

By Sarah Leach Smith, Visitor Services Coordinator
Photos by Michelle Rawlins, Horticulturist

Note: This is a 2016 blog post. We hope to see you at the 2018 festival (Nov. 4-6). More info here.

Celebrate the season of chrysanthemums at the first Festival of Fabulous Mums at Duke Gardens. The mums in this display are very different from typical garden mums. You will discover an amazing array of shapes and sizes, including spectacularly large flowers with spidery petals, quill petals, pompon shapes and exotic forms, all grown for this exhibit sponsored by the Central Carolina Chrysanthemum Society (CCCS) and Duke Gardens.

This free, drop-in event will begin Sunday, Nov. 6, and run through Wednesday, Nov. 9. Festival plants will show the tremendous array of mum flower shapes, as well as the impact of different growing techniques to encourage extra-large flowers in all the autumn hues of yellow, gold, plum, rust and red.

Members of the CCCS have grown these plants just for the festival. The blooms will not be judged, as they would in a national flower show. Instead, you can vote on your favorite flowers in the display area. You will also want to tour the Culberson Asiatic Arboretum to see the exhibit-style mums throughout the landscape.

Festival activities will be in the Kirby Horton Hall in the Doris Duke Center. In addition to admiring the mums on display, you’ll be able to chat with members of the CCCS about cultivating mums in your own garden. On Sunday, Nov. 6, from 1 to 2 p.m., enjoy a floral design demonstration by Pat McCracken of McCracken’s Nursery in Zebulon, N.C., a commercial grower with a love of floral design and pottery. Pat’s completed design, which will incorporate mums and use one of his original pottery pieces, will be on display for the remainder of the festival and raffled off on the last day. There will be additional raffles as well, including a “Magic Mum Pot” that will contain everything you will need to get started in growing exhibition mums, and a beautiful chrysanthemum printed scarf from Talbots.

Children of all ages will enjoy word searches, scavenger hunts and a mum festival booklet that you can rubber stamp when you’ve seen examples of the different kinds of blooms. You will also see various forms of growing mums, such as bonsai, and displays of historical mum artifacts. Don’t miss the selfie station—you’ll be the envy of your friends on social media!

Duke Gardens horticulturist Michelle Rawlins, a CCCS member, has grown quite a number of these show mums for Duke Gardens, and those will be on display in the Asiatic Arboretum throughout November.

Michelle began growing mums for display in Duke Gardens a few years ago, and it has become a passion for her. She’s excited to host this festival with the CCCS so that we can all enjoy the demonstration of beautiful flowers trained by careful horticulturists.

You may also become captivated by the exhibit mums and want to find out even more about these amazing flowers. The CCCS is always open to new members or visitors at its monthly meetings, held on the third Monday of every month at noon at JC Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh. The society was founded in 2015 and now has more than 40 members. Michelle enjoys meeting with the group to discuss chrysanthemums and is happy to see younger generations getting more involved. “It’s like a book club, but you get to talk about your plants, how they’re growing and what challenges you might be running into."

Michelle starts her mums like this every February.

Please join us for “A Festival of Fabulous Mums” and find out what all the excitement is about. Admission is free, though parking fees apply.

The hours of this drop-in festival are as follows:
                Sunday, Nov. 6, noon – 6 p.m.
                Monday, Nov. 7, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
                Tuesday, Nov. 8, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
                Wednesday, Nov. 9, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

For more information, please call 919-668-1707 or email gardenseducation@duke.edu.

Spotlight on Mums: from greenhouse to garden

Photo by Ashley Wong

By Micaela Unda

The Culberson Asiatic Arboretum is always a visual treat, particularly in fall, when green trees turn fiery orange and red, doubled by their reflection in the Asiatic Pond. But these last few weeks have brought an additional flourish of fall colors: show mums.

You'll find these long-stemmed chrysanthemums throughout the arboretum, but concentrated particularly in the new Pine Clouds Mountain Stream between the Japanese Pavilion and Flowers Drive. Pinks, oranges, yellows, whites, and with massive blooms, these stunning and photogenic flowers punctuate the landscape with cheerful pops of color.

This weekend will be the climax of the show mums' spectacle, with additional mums brought out from the Duke Gardens greenhouses. It's there where their lives begin, with staff horticulturists observing them carefully and taking detailed notes of their growth and health

The mums start from cuttings, says horticulturist Allison Vuyovich, who grew the flowers with fellow horticulturist Michelle Rawlins. "Then we pick three particular stalks that seem to be the strongest. You then let those grow up and stake them. Then we pinch the suckers and pinch off the buds." With  additional fertilizer, the buds and foliage grow large.

This is the second year that Duke Gardens has grown show-quality mums.  I enjoyed exploring the  aisles of the greenhouse, and seeing seeing the evolution of the plants as they blossom into the spectacular mums that earn their starring roles throughout the Asiatic Arboretum.

Garden-ready mums outside the propagation building.

The shapes and colors of the mums beg to be photographed, but learning how the mums are grown allowed me to truly appreciate their presence in the arboretum.

I hope you can visit Duke Gardens this weekend to appreciate these dramatic beauties, too!

Blogger and photographer Micaela Unda is a Duke University sophomore and a work-study marketing assistant at Duke Gardens. All photographs by Micaela Unda, except where noted.