chrysanthemum festival

the 9th day of the 9th lunar month is the double 9th festival, or chongyang, or chrysanthemum festival as we refer to it. the number 9 is meant to be masculine...makes sense, no? apparently, 'chong' means double. all around, it adds up to some cosmic auspicious stuff!

this is a camellia hybrid on it's last legs...still beautiful.  sometimes flowers on the verge of wasting are the most beautiful, i think.

the highlight of longwood garden's chrysanthemum festival is this beautiful 1,000 chrysanthemum flower. those are all part of 1 well-trained plant.  the largest in north america!

this was one plant with many different grafted hybrid flowers and their names.  a wonder!!  (i always want to pronounce wonder "wundah" like they do in manchester.)

a living wall.

spider mums.  they were really curly!

these japanese umbrellas were so impressive in person.  really lovely.

a smaller, let's say 200 flower, chrysanthemum.

this is called a shrimp plant.  see the resemblance?

bird of paradise.

 chenille plant.

i'll post a few more tomorrow.  of course there will be prints.

also, i put this mix together today.  music good to clean/paint/celebrate to...