Blossoming isn’t the right word…
The petals are opening crookedly, like fingers on an injured fist…
As if it pains the bud to keep enfolded for even an instant longer…
And each petal awakens into such intense life, it can’t and won’t march on command! It wants out and out it goes…
Out of the lengthening nights, into the waning light
If you have ever forced Mums, you may know they need long nights to make buds form. During long days, a Mum grows only roots, stems and leaves—the kind of progress botanists call “vegetative growth.”
Yet, paradoxically, the plant needs 12-hour nights and cooling temperatures to perform its most magnificent feat.
Budding starts only until when temperatures drop to 60-65°F, and flowers won’t form until it gets cold as 55-60ºF.
Ironic, yes? The most beautiful feat a Mum can perform happens at night, in the cold…
As if the Mum knows it needs to flower now or lose all purpose…
And when a canny gardener nips off all but the largest, central bud…
The desperate Mum packs all its hopes into that last bud and KAPOW…
A flower cries out in the chaos of birth, and starts growing so fast, its fingers and toes outrace one another other, seeming in this photograph to be hopelessly uneven…
But tomorrow each petal will reach full flower, and miraculously, nature’s code will even them up until we have…
One ginormous, perfectly glorious, hot pink Chrysanthemum blossom.
