One of the benefits of having a mother who is a florist and does landscape design, is you get to learn all of the gardening and flower secrets a lot of people don’t know about, like how to grow big Chrysanthemums. I know it seems early to think about fall flowers, but if you want those big, beautiful plants, you actually have to start now, or even a few weeks ago, if you have a time machine. I wanted to share with you how to prune mums for beautiful Autumn blooming color.

Garden mums are actually a perennial and can be planted in the ground

Most people consider mums a “disposable” plant even thought garden mums are technically a perennial and will return year after year when planted in the ground. I live in Zone 5a hardiness area and 90% of mine come back year after year. I have to admit though, I love how they add amazing fall color to my front when everything else is done blooming, but I will add a personal disclaimer. I HATE how they smell. Blech! Some people don’t mind it. Not me, but, I am willing to trade the color an texture for holding my nose every time I walk by them. I also mistakenly call them Geraniums from time to time and do not know why. I have to constantly correct myself, even though they look nothing a like. Maybe it’s because I hate the way those smell too.

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For years, I would buy fall mums in September,October for about $3.00 each, enjoy them for a month, let them die, and then throw them out. I didn’t even know that you could plant them here in Chicago and they probably would come back. Now I say probably, because sometimes they don’t, still not a bad investment for 3 bucks if they do. The trick to planting them is to planting them in the ground in September so they have time to form an adequate root system before the bitter cold. And, finding a spot they like in full sun and well-draining soil with a little wood mulch to keep the moisture in the ground at the base of the plant. Location is important. There are certain areas of my yard where they come back year after year, and there are certain places they die every.Single.Time. I save those “dead zones” for the urns and planters.

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I’ve even marked for you on this picture where you should pinch the leave back at. About once a week, I do a yard tour around my plants and do my pinching with my fingernails. It’s really mini-pruning to stimulate growth if you prefer to think about it that way. If you don’t like the smell of mums on your hands, or have sensitive skin or an allergy, use gloves and sharp scissors to create the same effect. Garden snips also work well.

Then when those form new shoots, pinch those back again-but only until July 4th. After that, let them grow and stop pinching! By early fall you’ll see the flower buds forming and slowly open. Our fall bloom starts here about mid-September and will run through mid-October.

Once the mum is blooming, you can remove spent flowers and extend the blook period by sometimes forcing new bud growth depending on certain varieties of garden mums.

The result of all of the micro-pruning is going to be beautiful,round bushy, Chrysanthemums that give out mounds of beautiful flowers, that will last much longer than any you could buy at the store. I like to plant mine with Coleus. The annuals not only compliment each other, and Coleus can fill in the blank space until the mum gets big enough, but coleus is very transplant-able, that if your mum grows big and crowds it out, even in fall with a little water you can plop it in a new space. That another one that benefits greatly from a lot of pinching. If you see the bright, chartreuse plant behind my mum, that’s a Coleus that was pinched every time the new growth got about a few inches tall.

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Mums can generally make it though the cold weather until the first frost in October/November . You can mulch them with straw if you live in colder zones to help them make it through the winter cold. The following year in late winter, early spring, remove the brown, dead stems from the base before the greenery starts to emerge. Every year they should get a little bigger. In fact, you can actually divide mums and transplant them in the early spring! Give them lots of water, sunlight and pinching and they will reward you with beautiful, flowering Fall color!

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