Who ate my chrysanthemums?

This year for the second time in my life I have tried to grow Chrysanthemums, the ones with the long stems that you usually see in the shops. Having seen pictures of some people having these outdoors in huge quantities, I thought I'd give it a try again. The last time I tried the plug plants didn't do much, but with a few more years of gardening experience and a larger greenhouse I thought I should give it another go. 

Second time lucky! I got some flowers this year of all 6 plants which I kept in the greenhouse. I realised a few weeks ago, that staking would have been a great idea too and probably if I had fed them a bit more and potted them on a bit more, I am sure they would have done even better. However, with just the one zigzag bunch and possibly more next year, I'm happy for now. 

That was until I found that in the last few days something has been eating the flowers! Not the leaves, just the flowers! The culprits were found quickly enough as they had previously ravished my mizuna (rocket type salad leaves) and those that escaped obviously moved on to greener pastures or in this case the more coloured pastures of my chrysanthemums!

Left with about half of the flowers that I had, I decided that the only thing to do was to add some other flowers to the bunch. Last week's Euphorbia oblongata was still doing fine and thus presented itself as the obvious candidate as it compliments rather than distracts from the vibrant chrysantemum blooms. 

So next year more plant food, more potting on and more vigilance with regards to caterpillars. For now though, I am enjoying my first bunch of home grown chrysanthemums.