Chrysanthemum Tea anyone?

Mr Bear is very knowledgeable about growing plants ever since I knew him in uni. As a belated gardening noob, I have been learning a lot from him. 

The transplant activity - erdbeeren runners, chrysanthemums and soaked sweet potato leaves

Last Friday at NTUC (the supermarket has the most accessible, cheapest nursery near us), we were talking about chrysanthemums, because it is very popular to showcase these flowers during Chinese New Year. He wanted to get some "mums", whereas I am turned off because I consider them as flowers you make offerings with to the dead.

However last Samstag at the nursery, I was hunting for portulaca in vain. However, I saw all varieties of chrysanthemums for sale. Then the leaky cogs in my brain started grinding. Why not grow my own chrysanthemums for tea?!

After all, I buy a lot of these flowers for tea as they have cooling properties and has detoxification purposes. Chrysanthemum tea is great for people with diarrhea, sore throats, fevers and swollen joints (translated and summarized from the Chinese explanation below).

So I pored over the flowers, ultimately choosing two cute little pots to bring home. After the great Zinnia scare, I decided to split one pot of flowers into a deeper trough, reusing the one I had been using to regrow sweet potato leaves in.

I lifted the plant out. Looked like they were grown tightly in the pot because their roots were interweaved, collecting at the bottom of the pot. I dipped the entire plant in a bit of water then tried to loosen the roots a bit at the bottom before separating them slowly. I am sorry for the transplant shock! Hope they are resilient enough to withstand it. I watered the plant sparingly after the transplant.

After transplanting the chrysanthemums

The joke is that after all that effort, it turned out that I might have gotten the wrong variety for making tea. Oopz~!

菊花食疗作用：

菊花味甘微苦、性微寒，归肺、肝经；
清香宣散，升中有降；具有疏散风热，清肝明目，清热解毒的功效；
主治外感风热或风温初起，发热、头痛，眩晕，目赤肿痛，疔疮肿毒。