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A Trip the 49th Annual ODCS Chrysanthemum Exhibition
On October 26, 2024, I attended the 49th annual chrysanthemum exhibition put on by the Old Dominion Chrysanthemum Society (ODCS) in northern Virginia. As we have no active chapter of the National Chrysanthemum Society (NCS) in Pittsburgh, nor any nearby areas, this was the closest opportunity to exhibit the mums I had been training throughout the summer.
At its core, a chrysanthemum show offers a space for amateur growers to showcase their blooms, bonsai or ikebana designs. They are open for the general public to come and appreciate the beauty of this responsive, hearty and culturally significant plant.
Submitting an entry to a chrysanthemum show is an immense accomplishment. To be an amateur grower does not mean one is inexperienced. Amateur growers do not produce mums for profit, but for the sheer pleasure of growing them. This also means one cannot utilize a permanent structure to grow the mums. As our automated greenhouses at Phipps are considered permanent, I had to grow my show mums outside and meet the challenges those conditions presented. This stipulation levels the playing field for all growers and encourages creativity.
A good example of this is when it comes time for “blacking out.” Chrysanthemums bud in response to short days. Many cultivars would bloom far too late if allowed to respond naturally. The practice of “blacking out” or “shading” tricks the mums into thinking it is time to bloom by artificially shortening the hours of sunlight they receive. At Phipps we have automated blackout cloths that encapsulate entire greenhouses in darkness. On the amateur level, I have heard of growers using black trash bags or cardboard boxes to achieve the same end: submitting well-timed blooms at the chrysanthemum show.
The sturdy nature of the chrysanthemum bloom allows for people to come from hundreds of miles away and still have pristine, ribbon-worthy entries. I travelled to the show with eight cut blooms secured in buckets of water and belted into the backseat of my car! I submitted four of them as show entries, and I was kindly allowed to display the remaining four for educational purposes. All of these were the most common type of entry, one cut stem with a single large bloom, commonly known as disbuds.
After submissions closed, judging began, in which every single entry was scrutinized, scored and ribboned. I volunteered to help with the judging as a clerk. Essentially, this meant attaching the appropriate ribbons to the entry cards of the blooms after they were judged. This enabled me to listen to the judges as they discussed the merits of an entry, identified the flaws and assigned a score.
Of the four blooms I submitted, three won a red ribbon, meaning they scored a minimum of 85 points, and one, ‘Kokka Bunmi,’ received a blue ribbon, having scored 90 points. My winning of a blue ribbon means that in future ODCS shows, I will no longer be allowed to enter as a novice grower; I will now submit my entries into the general horticulture section, where all the experienced amateur growers contend!
During my time at the ODCS Show, I engaged most with Galen Goss and Camilla Ng, both of whom came to visit Phipps earlier this year. Camilla is the current president of the ODCS chapter, and both she and Galen hold board and advisory positions with the NCS.
At the close of the day, bonsai expert John Capobianco gave a presentation on the process of training chrysanthemums to be displayed as bonsai. People are drawn to these plants for bonsai because they are much quicker to grow and train compared to more traditional tree species. What might take decades for a Japanese maple is accomplished in a matter of months with a chrysanthemum! In his presentation, Capobianco discussed the method he employs to grow a show-ready chrysanthemum bonsai, from stock plant, to cutting, to training and blacking out.
My visit to the ODCS Show affirmed my desire to grow new entries next season. The chrysanthemum is not just that potted plant you see at the grocery store every September! It is capable of so much more. I want to seek new ways of using Phipps and its resources and platforms as a channel to get people interested in this plant, perhaps even to form a chapter right here in Pittsburgh. For those of us at Phipps who grow mums every year for the Fall Flower Show, being involved with the ODCS has reinvigorated our desire to understand and perfect our methods, inside and outside, and to engage with the larger community on a topic we know very well.
