photo-essay
passionate about mums
2026 : September
pride, passion and heritage take centre stage at this year’s Pniel Chrysanthemum Flower Show
written by Susie Leblond photography by Mikhailia Vera Martha Petersen
We wind our way up a narrow street, chickens and children watching curiously as we park. Richard’s house sits at the very foot of the mountain, damp winter fog still clinging to its edges. We’re greeted warmly and shown into his garden, where he makes the statement that defines what the Pniel Chrysanthemum Society stands for: ‘This is art.’ Richard Williams, the society’s secretary, is a man with spreadsheets, knowledge, and the passion to keep these heritage blooms alive.
Tea and biscuits appear, and I sit with Richard Williams and Bernard Mentoor, Richard’s father-in-law and a veteran grower who began in the Stellenbosch Horticultural Society. Bernard is 84 now and has been growing chrysanthemums for 61 years, after being introduced to both dahlias and chrysanthemums and choosing the mums. ‘Dahlias are terrible in the vase,’ he tells me with a wry smile. ‘Mums just keep going.’ It’s practical knowledge you only get from actually growing things. He speaks about his blooms with pride and genuine affection, a man who has perfected his craft over six decades. The cultivars grown in Pniel now were brought here decades ago from across the country, nurtured and refined until their forms became what they are. Some of the motherstock originally came from overseas, cuttings lovingly tucked into luggage in a time when customs wasn’t quite so stringent. Those plants, some now sixty years old, have survived and thrived here in Pniel, tended by people who understand their value.
Richard learned from Bernard, starting as a show steward and working his way up to judge and chairman. Now he’s the one keeping it alive, reaching out to older people in the community, people with time and patience, and teaching them how to grow these properly. Three new members joined last year, and two of them are showing for the first time. He’s doing what Bernard did for him – passing it on through hands-on learning, person to person.
The flowers have to be perfect on show day. Richard laughs as he tells us about the flowers that don’t meet the judges’ stringent standards – banished to behind the curtain on the stage in the church hall. There’s no room for compromise here. Both Bernard and Richard can spot a champion bloom a mile away. Bernard lights up when reminiscing about past shows, his face animated with pride. His favourite year, he showed five perfect white spider forms that he’d stabilised as a variety. He chuckles and says that day is still talked about. That’s mastery; that’s what sixty years of attention looks like.
They won’t sell the plants, even though commercial growers have approached them over the years, wanting to scale it up and make money. Bernard and Richard hold onto the plants tightly, only gifting them to people they trust, people who will actually grow them the way they should be grown. Once they become a commodity, you lose something essential – the knowledge and care disappear into the market. What they’re protecting is heritage. Some things matter more than profit.
It’s art and passion and heritage and tradition all at once. Every year the show looks the same, and that’s the whole point. Same hall, same green blazers on the judges, same shiny trophies and ribboned rosettes, blooms transported in black plastic crates, then placed in recycled green glass bottles on the tables. Nothing changes. And in a world where everything else is constantly shifting, being disrupted, and scaled up, there’s a deep comfort in the steadfastness of these traditions.
There’s value in keeping something alive exactly as it is, in spending a year perfecting one thing, in refusing to compromise just because it would be easier or make more money. That’s what Bernard and Richard understand.
That’s what draws me back to Pniel year after year.
Page through House and Leisure Volume 22 (Flower) for more stories in bloom…
