Let It Grow
By Tammy Thornton
If you enjoy decorating your porch for autumn, you’ll inevitably find yourself buying mums (garden chrysanthemums)—the quintessential fall flower. With the rich colors of burgundy, yellow, and orange, who can resist? Though some people treat mums as annuals and throw them to the curb when they are done blooming, you can plant these perennials in your garden to enjoy year after year. Combine with other perennial fall flowers and throw in a few annuals for good measure, and you’ll soon find yourself with a fall festival of flowers.
To keep your mums fresh and healthy-looking, make sure you water them frequently. They are thirsty buggers and will quickly turn brown and dry if they aren’t well-watered. Of course, planting them in the ground will keep them from drying out as quickly and will allow them to establish their roots before winter freezes occur. But if you are like me, it’s nice to place some on the steps and front porch to greet your guests. Keep them blooming as long as possible by buying mums with tight buds. Choose plants that have a mix of open flowers (for instant gratification) and unopened flowers to extend the blooming time. As the individual flowers fade, snip off the spent buds (deadhead) to encourage more blooms.
Take your decorations to the next level by ditching the cheap plastic containers that come with mums. Instead, place mums in pretty pots, urns, or bushel baskets. Make an arrangement in your container by adding a mix of winter pansies (that laugh at the cold) and tall, fall grasses in the back. Remember the rule of thumb for planting pots, “thriller, filler, spiller”. You want something tall that makes a statement in the center or back of your arrangement, something that spills over the front of the pot (like potato vine, ivy, or pansies), and a filler (usually something with small flowers that fills in any gaps).
If orange and the other typical fall colors aren’t your vibe, go for non-traditional. White and sage pumpkins are all the rage; couple them with pink or white mums, tall spiky celosia, or asters (often labeled as purple mums). Don’t forget decorative cabbages which can have beautiful florets tinged with pink centers—vegetables never looked so good. Personally, I love the look of contrasting burgundy mums with the white-gray of dusty miller. Lately, I’ve been smitten with a plant called senecio Angel Wings. The silvery-white and velvety foliage almost looks a bit spooky or ghostly, which would be fitting for the end of this month.
If you have planted your mums in the ground, you can look forward to seeing them again in the spring. By then, the top layer of stems and leaves will have succumbed to winter. But if you trim away these dead pieces, you will see fresh green life sprouting up. By late spring and early summer, the mums will have regrown enough to need pruning. When the plants have grown to about 6 – 8 inches, prune half of the new growth to encourage compact, bushy plants with loads of blooms. You can do this 2 – 3 more times until the Fourth of July. Pruning after this may cause you to cut off buds that are forming. If you neglect the task of pruning your mums at least once or twice, they may still bloom, but will be leggy and out of control like a wild child.
Every few years, you should divide your mums or they will develop a dead patch in the center and produce less flowers. Divide them in the spring and water well the night before. Make sure you have plenty of roots attached to each section you remove and plant the “new plants” in a section of the garden with full sun and well-drained soil.
Add new mums to your garden every fall, and you will soon have a riot of colors that rival the spring and summer gardens. Combine with fall-blooming perennials like Montauk daisies, Autumn Joy sedum, and asters to keep your mums company. Then fill in any bare spots with pansies and the unusual flowers of celosia. Top it all off with a layer of mulch and the beautiful fall garden you’ve created will comfort you as you reminisce about the warm beach days of summer.
We would love to hear from our readers. Send your gardening questions, comments, and photos to shorelocalgardener@gmail.com.
Tammy Thornton is a mom of four, a substitute teacher, and a Sunday school teacher. She is passionate about gardening and cooking, and loves the beach.
