Radio Documentary, BBC Radio 4, Pick of the Week, Creative Radio, William Bowman, Jools Gilson, Chrysanthemum.
Jools Gilson explores the world of chrysanthemums through memories of her grandfather, Chinese tea ceremonies, and the search for the perfect bloom.
Gorgeous, medicinal and edible, chrysanthemums come with whole worlds in their blossoms. Jools Gilson chases these remarkable plants from her Grandad’s garden in the 1930s to the latest National Chrysanthemum Show in Stafford, visits championship grower Ivor Mace’s garden in the Rhondda Valley and sips chrysanthemum tea ceremoniously in Notting Hill.
What is it that drives people to tend their chrysanthemums as if they were newborn babies? And what is the connection between these floral shenanigans and the chrysanthemums used as ancient Chinese herbal remedies for calming itchy eyes and lowering blood pressure?
Jools returns to her roots, to ask her aunties how her Grandad found time between factory work, growing vegetables and trapping rabbits to feed his ten children, to grow something just because it was beautiful.
What blossoms is a story of survival, and the pursuit of perfection.