Watch How This 1000-Bloom Mega Flower Was Grown

This is a single Chrysanthemum with 991 blooms, measuring 11 feet in diameter. It’s the largest plant of its type ever grown in North America. Here’s how a master horticulturalist and a metal fabricator teamed up to make it happen.

Gigantic mutant flowers don’t just grow themselves. This one was crafted by master grower Yoko Arakawa and metal worker Dave Beck using a challenging Japanese technique called Ozukuri:

The rigorous, 18-month growing technique involves meticulous watering, pinching and tying of the chrysanthemum to a customised wire frame to train the plant to grow into the desired form. The blooms are painstakingly arranged in a dome shape, with the goal of achieving as many uniform blooms as possible.

Only a few growers in the entire world today are skilled in the techniques of training a Thousand Bloom.

The horticultural feat is on display at this year’s Longwood Gardens’ Chrysanthemum Festival in Kennett Square, PA, running through November 21. After that it will become sentient, unroot itself from its correspondingly large stand, and viciously devour everything in its path. [Longwood Gardens via Core77