I have not done anything more with them.
To answer your question the above quote is a bit of a grey area, i.e. it is lacking a bit more detail!
I am going to guess you are growing on the stools meaning there is quite possibly a number of shoots emanating from the root ball.........Am I correct?
I seem to remember something about taking cuttings early in spring and pinching out to make bushy
If I am correct each of these shoots would have been a cutting, then in turn each one would have been a seperate plant.
But what I would say you have now is a number of plants but only ONE rootball.
This one root ball won't sustain all these plants so you could possibly do two things ( a picture would have helped me to sure of my reply)
1) Cut all the growth/s off and leave one stem and nip the tip out to encourage branching, and in this case the premature buds you mention.
2) The other thing you could do is split the plant/root to form two or three plants (subject to the size of the root ball) and leave these with one stem each.
If you leave the plant/s as they are they will flower but you will be have to very lucky to get long stem suited to forming a cut flower arreangement.
Basically one stem will now be effectively one plant!
Have a read of the attached link and look at the slide show and see what you should have done!
http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Data/Chrysanthemum/Chrysanthemums.htm
