Did I breed a new Chrysanthemum?

A few days ago, I was taking my new brush cutter out for a spin and happily whacking down all the goldenrod growing in front of my Limelight hydrangea hedge. As I got close to the gravel path by the mailbox, I looked down and registered a very different leaf shape. Now, I had already noticed that some of my verbascum and a few of my Café Crème digitalis had self-seeded in and around that hedge, but this wasn’t either of those.

This looked remarkably like chrysanthemum foliage.

So I shut off the weed whacker. Because at that point I was basically standing there thinking, Wait. What is going on here? I bent down, took a closer look, and yes. It was a chrysanthemum. And not just one of the ordinary cushion mums. Based on the leaf shape and the way it was growing, it looked like one of my heirloom-type chrysanthemums. Which made absolutely no sense. The nearest chrysanthemums I had intentionally planted were at least ten to fifteen feet away. This plant is practically on the edge of the road. In fact, I’m going to have to stake it so some passing bicyclist doesn’t destroy it, because it already has buds.

This little one is determined to grow.

I certainly didn’t plant it there. For years I had heard that the way to propagate heirloom chrysanthemums was vegetatively—usually from cuttings. I’ve had chrysanthemums send up growth some distance from the original crown before. I once had a plant die out in the center while runners survived and produced little plants maybe a foot away.

But this? This was way too far away for that explanation. So I started wondering: Could this actually be a seedling? Naturally, I ran back inside and started researching. And apparently, yes. Heirloom chrysanthemums can, on occasion, produce viable seed. Which means that I appear to have a chrysanthemum seedling.

And now I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to get.

Over the years, I’ve grown a ridiculous number of chrysanthemums in that part of the garden, and that makes the parentage even harder to guess. Chrysanthemums are not always especially long-lived perennials here. Some come back reliably for a few years. Others disappear after a winter that is too cold, too wet, or simply too miserable for them. So I’ve planted different varieties in those beds over time, including green chrysanthemums like Woolmans Century and Nightshade, along with a number of others. Which means that even if this really is an open-pollinated seedling, I may never know what its parents were. The plant that produced the seed may not even still be in the garden.

And then there is the question of when that seed actually germinated. Anyone who gardens long enough knows that seeds do not always operate according to our preferred timetable. Sometimes they sit in the soil until conditions are right. I’ve seen that happen with poppies. I once scattered poppy seed through my driveway beds and got absolutely nothing. Then the following year, after wetter conditions, up they came. This past winter was both very cold and very wet, so perhaps those were exactly the conditions this particular chrysanthemum seed needed. Maybe it had only been there since last season. Maybe it had been sitting in the soil much longer.

I honestly have no idea. Which means that this little plant beside the road may be less like a clue I can solve and more like a tiny genetic time capsule from some earlier version of my garden. What I do know is that this plant is well established, it has buds, and I am definitely not ripping it out before I find out what those flowers look like.nnWill it be green? Pink? Bronze? Spider-form? Spoon-form? Something completely ordinary?

I have no clue. And that is precisely why I’m so excited about it. As soon as it blooms, I’ll photograph it. If it turns out to be something interesting, I’ll take cuttings and then dig the plant up after flowering and put the root system into a pot. I’ll probably overwinter it upstairs on my third floor just to make absolutely certain I don’t lose it. Because if I have somehow managed to accidentally produce a gorgeous new chrysanthemum while doing absolutely nothing to accomplish that goal, I’m not leaving it beside the road to take its chances. And apparently people are still breeding new chrysanthemums. Crown Mums, for example, has cultivars developed and named by contemporary growers, so clearly this can still be done.

Does this mean I’m about to add chrysanthemum breeder to my list of hobbies?

Probably not.

But check back with me in two years. I’ve said things like that before.

I’m so excited!

I see 4 little buds!!!