A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Plants and Flowers Forum backyard chrysanthemum farm for wedding?

Hi all! I'm new here, but I've been gardening for a couple of years here in Los Angeles. I just got engaged last week, and the wedding's going to be November 2 this year. We're trying to put as many personal touches and home-made kinda things as we can in the wedding. I love gardening so I thought I could contribute the flowers.

We love chrysanthemums, and November 2 is also the date of the local Descanso Gardens Chrysanthemum Show, which makes them seem like the perfect flower to grow for the wedding. We'd need 100 or 300 flowers, I'm guessing, in a variety of colors and shapes. We'd also plant other flowers to go with them, but haven't figured out which yet. So it'd be a pretty big area of the backyard lawn to dig up, but I hate lawns and it'd be fun.

Anyway, before I figure out all the details and order a bunch of seeds, I want to make sure that this is a reasonable idea. Is it possible to be pretty sure that my plants will be blooming on or soon before November 2? What are the chances they start blooming late, or die early?

(And do any SoCalifornians have any recommendations for strains for our climate?)

Thanks for any help!
Ben

Welcome, Bents. And congratulations! When reading about flowers for a certain date like a wedding, I have read that you cannot rely on them blooming. I think you may have to purchase some fill-in ones. But it sure could be fun to try. Find a local small nursery in your area. Ask your questions of what, when, which companions may be blooming on your date. You should be able to come up with some of your flowers though. And that will be a lovely memory.
I am about 60 miles inland from LA. I have lived in LA before and my climate is so much different in the desert. Different planting requirements altogether.
Good luck!

Thanks Tina. I went to the local 5-acre nursery, and the dude there said they generally don't carry mums until summer. Apparently most customers don't plan ahead, preferring to buy plants when they're in bloom.

So it looks like I'll be getting seeds online. It might be a crap shoot, whether I get varieties good for LA or not. We'll see! It will be a gardening adventure.

Hah! The word "c_r_a_p" in my post referred to the dice game, not the brown stuff, but it got bleeped anyway.

...and as you can see we have ways of getting around the "bleep" on here...lol

So I got a bunch of seeds on amazon. I didn't calculate ahead of time how many seeds I would need. I just bought six packages of 20-30 seeds, which seemed like a lot. It turned out not to be enough seeds to cover the area very well. I tilled a reaaally big area!

It seems like instructions I read generally say to get heated seed-starting pads. Not happening :-(. We've got a warm spell coming on in LA so I'm gonna hope that and watering does the trick.

Do you folks think a nursery would order them from a wholesaler for me, if the seeds don't work out?