Chrysanthemums are captivating flowers with their diverse shapes and rich symbolism, providing grace to your garden every year with effective care.
It has an extended collection of varieties, each with its unique form and color palette. Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned gardener, this guide will help you know the secrets to cultivate and provide step-by-step guidance on planting, growing, and caring for your chrysanthemums.
Chrysanthemums are often known as the perennial members of the daisy family and bloom during late summer and early fall. They look like huge daisies with rings of long, flat narrow petals, surrounding a button of tiny yellow petals.
These types vary in their hardness, from being winter hardy in our coldest zones to needing frost protection through the winter. Some grow heavy as perennials to add color and brightness whereas some make neat domes of color, and are ideal for planting in containers.
Mums require rich, well-draining soil and dislike standing water. They will quickly rot if left too wet. Choose a planting site in full sun, away from trees and large shrubs.
Many people set their potted mums near their porches as the plant that receives light from street lights at night will slowly grow. However, it will grow quicker if provided with efficient day sun or water.
When To Plant Mums
These mums are hardy perennial plants, best planted in the early spring. You can begin mums indoors from seed 6 to 8 weeks before the last spring frost date.
It's tempting to buy those huge beautiful fall mums you see during the autumn, but for a long duration, small ones are a better investment. Planting in spring will result in a bigger bloom in the following season. Although some mums survive winter, if planted quickly, the odds are much better with the spring-planted mums.
How To Plant Mums
For planting these mums, you need to check on how hardy these mums are, what is the best soil, how much sunlight it requires, and whether spacing matters. To plant mums, first set mums 18 to 36 inches apart depending on their expected sizes at maturity. Also, they need proper air circulation.
Plant them in the ground at the same depth that it was grown in the pot. If you plant it too low, water gathers around the base and makes its stem rot. So, it is most needed to keep it moist. If you are growing them in pots, they will dry in no time. When you water them, they should drain out the bottom.
These mums should be planted into well-prepared, fertile, or well-drained soil where they get a full early morning sun for at least 5 to 6 hours daily.
Watering these mums is crucial to success as you should keep them moist. Soak the soil deeply when watering but should avoid watering the leaves. When new shoots are 3 to 4 inches tall, pinch their top leaving some leaves on these shoots leaving them 2 to 3 weeks. Stop fertilizing after the flower buds emerge.
Overwintering Mums
These mums can be kept outdoors through the winter but when in extreme cold, they can be kept in a basement or dark or closed closet. Make sure to pot plants after their first frost in fall, capturing as many roots as possible, and leave them till spring.
Dividing Mums
Every 2 to 3 years, you have to divide these mums when new growth appears in the spring season. Take a knife and cut out the old central portion of the plant. Discard it and cut the remaining portion into different partitions. Each partition should have its shoots and good roots before replanting them.
Potting And Repotting
This is the most crucial thing you can perform to increase the longevity of the mums. Most are completely root-bound and have usually taken up the entire pot, making it hard for the soil to retain supplying water.
To repot, choose any container that is larger than the previous one. The pot should have inbuilt drainage holes. After that, fill the pot with good quality potting soil and gently break up any roots you can. Remember that when you plant in a new pot, the soil's surface should be an inch below the lip of the new pot.
When you plant and grow these Chrysanthemums, it becomes crucial to care for these mums until they bloom. Knowing how to care for these plants requires basic gardening techniques, and with little care, your garden will be filled with beautiful blooms.
Here are some of the things you should know when caring:
1. How Often You Should Wate These Mums?
Mums require even moisture for their best growth that's why you should know how much water you can provide these mums for their better growth. Consistent water during the spring, summer, and fall is significant.
Early morning watering to a depth of 6 to 8 inches is needed. The ideal method for watering is to apply moisture directly to the plant's base. This restricts moisture from being trapped in the thick foliage.
2. Should They Be Pruned?
These mums are not exactly pruned but are pinched throughout the growing season. This helps the plant branch out, become fuller, and offer more blooms.
When the plant reaches 6 to 8 inches tall, pinch 1 inch off the shoot and repeat it every 2 to 3 weeks gap, until early summer. Deadhead spent blooms throughout the fall for a longer bloom time. Once the plant dies, avoid cutting it back. Then, clean up the dead stems and foliage during the spring.
3. Is Fertilizer Essential For Mums?
Every plant needs nutrients. Fertilizing these plants provides an added boost of essential nutrients for their best growth. The primary development of chrysanthemum plants takes place in spring and early summer.
First, select a balanced, water-soluble fertilizer for a monthly application from early spring through July. If you plant fall mums, wait to begin their fertilizing until the spring season. Fertilization in fall can help reduce the hardiness of chrysanthemums to survive cold winters.
4. Ways To Increase Winter Hardiness
The key to their winter survival is a consistent soil temperature. Frequent cold and thawing cycles damage the roots of the plants. So, you need to add a thick layer of mulch up to 4 inches, which helps to maintain an even soil temperature during the winter. Using a loose mulch-like straw can reduce compaction and increase the insulation of the ground.
5. Can Chrysanthemums Be Divided?
Like many other perennials, these plants can advantage of dividing into separate segments, every 3 to 4 years. If you notice your mums would no longer grow full and round, they need to be divided. Spring is the best time to get them divided into several sections. You can discard the woody center of the plant as it won't perform as well as the outer sections. Cut it gently and then repot it into garden soil rich with organic matter.
Beloved for their late summer and fall flowers, these mums are terrific plants for adding colors to borders and containers when most summer flowers fade away. With a wide range of colors, shapes, and sizes, its genus includes 40 species, countless horticultural varieties, and cultivars available.
These plants are divided into classes, and petite to giant blooms. Also, they come in several colors from pink, purple, and red to orange, white, and yellow.
1. Anemone
These Chrysanthemums produce large or small flowers similar to the semi-double but need support. They are mid-season bloomers displaying a raised cushion-like center. They form a 4-inch bloom in single or multiple colors.
Popular varieties: Dorothy Mechum, Purple Light, and Angel
2. Decorative
They display large to medium large flattened full blooms with upper florets while the lower petals are generally reflex. They are early and mid-season blooms, especially in September and October.
Popular varieties: Fireflash, Coral Charm and Honeyglow
3. Irregular Incurve
These mums feature forest curving inwards. Irregular in curve mums feature large blooms of 6-8 inches. The florets curved in and covered the flower's center.
Popular varieties: Luxor, Blushing Bride, and River City
4. Intermediate Incurve
With shorter florets curving inwards, the less-compact bloom of an intermediate incurve only reaches a maximum of 6 inches. They didn't cover the center of the bloom.
Popular Varieties: Apricot Alexis, Candid, and Pat Lawson
5. Regular Incurve
Regular in curve blossoms are tight, smooth globes of inward-curving flowers. Each bloom is 4 to 6 inches in diameter.
Popular varieties: Gillette, Moira, and Heather James
