Randy Manuel's grandmother, Evelyn Manuel, was a noted artist in Atlantic Canada. His father was a government employee and artist on his own time. His daughter Julie takes after her great-grandmother.

But Randy's medium is flowers.

"I paint with mums," he says. Indeed he does, with a wide palette of colours, textures, shapes and forms of the huge chrysanthemum family. More than 13,000 visitors will see his work in the next nine days at Hamilton's annual Mum Show.

Manuel would be the first to say he's part of a team -- all city staff -- that makes it happen. But it's his vision on show. This year's theme is A Reflection of Mums and includes water features and other reflecting surfaces such as mirrors.

Manuel is lead hand and grower at the city greenhouses at Gage Park. Much of the year, he works on planning and growing the half-million plants for traffic islands, hanging baskets and display beds.

Each fall, he does what he really loves: puts together the annual celebration of Hamilton's official flower. The mum show started 80 years ago. I've seen at least a dozen, and this year's strikes me as one of the loveliest. The flowers are spectacular, in a huge range of shapes, forms, sizes and colours. Among my favourites are a variety with flamelike orange-and-red petals, and a small, yellow daisylike mum with dark centres.

Manuel is a big, burly guy who looks as if he'd take no guff from anyone. But get him talking about the flowers and a marshmallow centre reveals itself. "These are my babies," he says with a chuckle. "This is the part of the job I love."

The show has 145 varieties of chrysanthemum, up from just 27 at the 2000 show. The entrance to the main display glass house is through the Educational House where displays explain the 13 classes of chrysanthemums, including Reflex, Irregular Incurve, Pompon, Spoon, Quill and Spider, as well as the 12-month process from cuttings to magnificent bloom.

The display house is a mass of flowers, starting with thousands of blooms in seasonal fall colours -- red, yellow, orange -- fading to cooler colours. Water falls over mirrors reflecting the flowers. Make sure you turn around at the exit and look back -- the display looks great from either end.

All mums will be for sale on Nov. 4 and 5 for $3 and $2. These are not hardy mums and must winter indoors. When they're finished blooming, they're done. (The exception is Japanese standard mums, which can be planted outside in the spring. Manuel says it's a lot of work to bring them to bloom, and they'll be sold with instructions.)

The show includes a small trade show of artists and craftspeople, displays by local organizations, a tea room and coffee shop and the year-round Tropical House, which is one of Hamilton's secret treasures.

See the whole thing in an hour and then unwind for another hour in one of the peaceful sitting areas. At $5 it's a steal.

Rob Howard lives and gardens in Hamilton. Talk gardening with him Saturdays 9 to 11 a.m. on Room To Grow on AM900 CHML.