Fall is mommy season!
The booming equivalent of putting on warm, fluffy socks, wrapping up in your favorite cozy sweater, and enjoying a relaxing hot drink.
Nothing brightens up the warm fall colors of your backyard like mums blooming in the fall.
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Highlighting precious autumn moments
When treated correctly, mums provide gorgeous color all the way through the fall, after Thanksgiving, and can even grace the festivities of Christmas in the winter!
The perfect size for every use.
The hardy fall-flowering mums, available from your favorite nursery, come in a wide range of sizes that make them very practical.
Annual flowers that look a little worse off? Before. Take them out. Place a few small 4-inch pots of garden mums in summer containers or in the bed of annuals to retain fall color.
Small to medium-sized mother plants are perfect for planting fall-flowering pots, containers, and hanging baskets.
Plant medium to large sized chrysanthemums, using only their explosive flower heads as specimens for fantastic bright and vibrant colors.
In their own pot from the nursery or planted in your favorite pots, mums adorn the fall display while bringing together the warm and inviting colors of fall.
Warm colors for cold seasons
Strong mums come in rich shades of orange, red, yellow, gold, white, pink and burgundy, ready to warm up the perfect fall garden setting.
Hardy mums, also known as garden mums, are good friends with other fall flowers like dahlias, pansies and asters.
Its round and compact shape adapts perfectly to autumn sensations like ornamental grasses and cabbages or ornamental cabbages.
Why Deadhead Moms?
Simple. The more dead heads, the longer your mother will continue to grow her magnificent, luxurious flowers.
Cultivated for centuries, fall-flowering mums are bred to maintain their round, compact shape and produce continuous blooms for weeks.
Removing dried and spent flower heads, known as deadheading, allows the flower buds below to reach the plant’s surface and open.
This keeps the chrysanthemum plant constantly covered with large, prolific blooms.
Guess what? Chrysanthemums are edible and medicinal as long as they are not covered in synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers.
Chrysanthemum flower tea has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for millennia. It can relieve inflammation, high blood pressure, and respiratory problems.
So cutting, collecting and drying mother flowers can also add something extra to the pantry. Or in a cozy, soothing, warm autumn drink.
how to kill mothers
Luxurious labor of love, just squeeze mom’s flowers when they start to wilt.
Once or twice a week, have a good time with your beautiful mother plants, thank them for their rich color, and do a quick cleanup.
Usually delicate enough to pinch spent flowers with your thumb and forefinger, pinch each flower just where the next set of leaves begins to appear.
Pinching the next set of leaves maintains the classic, fluffy stem shape, pinching the flower at its base leaves cushion-like stems all over the plant.
Overwhelmed by too many wilted flowers?
Did you miss any deadheading sessions? It’s time to break out the cropping tools!
Yes, you can gently cut off the top layer of faded chrysanthemum flowers.
Shaving quickly exposes the many flower buds beneath the shallow blooms.
Shearing also allows you to reshape the stem a little, to adapt it to the space it is in or to make room for neighboring plants.
Try not to shave the plant too much, as it’s easy to accidentally cut unopened flowers.
Related reading: How to make dead flowers: 3 reasons why you should (and when you shouldn’t)
Tips for choosing the mother plant that will last the longest
Choose a mom from your favorite nursery in September or October.
Choose a mother who is about to open her incredibly fertile flowers.
Place your beautiful new mom in full sun.
Secret tips for suspicious moms
If you must shade your mum, choose one that is already mostly in full bloom, as mums won’t open too much in the shade, but will keep their colorful blooms open for a few more weeks.
Mama flowers successively for a long-lasting parade of Mama flowers
Like many showy flowering plants, some chrysanthemums will bloom before or after others.
Mums come in early, mid and late flowering varieties.
Choose flowering plants in early, mid and late fall for the longest parade of blooming mums.
At the garden center or nursery, some plants are already fully open (early), just beginning to open (mid-season) or in bud (late). These are good indicators of the remaining flowering time for each plant.
*Warning. Some mums are artificially forced to bloom too early in the season, which means they may be past their prime for great fall color.
Hardy Mum Care for healthy and sustainable plants
No matter where you put your marinated mother, she will be thirsty! Baste the breasts at least once a day and place a saucer under the pan to hold extra water.
Once the beautiful flowers begin to open, stop fertilizing. Flowering mums have done all the hard work to enter the flowering stage, so fertilizer will only confuse them and may cause unwanted leg growth.
Chrysanthemum plants have strong root systems. Replant them in larger pots with healthy potting soil. Especially if they are rooted in the pot they entered.
Hardy Mums vs Florist Mums – What’s the difference?
Hardy mums, also called garden mums, are perennials that are hardy in zones 4-5-9.
They produce a strong root system with sturdy suckers that allow them to survive the winter outdoors, where chrysanthemums are more tender.
Often moms aren’t labeled as resistant or not, so that’s a guess. Not 100% of the time, but a simple rule: hardy mums tend to have a full double flower, while florist mums have an open center flower.
Can I plant my new mum outside?
Mums are often treated like glorious fall flowers to help us celebrate the end of the growing season.
But if! Hardy mums are perennials! They are hardy in zones 4-5 through 9.
Plant them 4 to 6 weeks before the ground freezes.
Hardy mothers need time to adapt and give them a chance to survive the winter.
Treat them like other perennials planted in the fall.
Easy to grow, give your garden mom plenty of space (2-3 feet), plenty of sun, and plenty of water in well-drained soil, and you’ll be rewarded with fall blooms year after year.
To maintain the mum’s compact, round, succulent shape next spring, pinch her several times in late spring and early summer for bushy, prolific blooms next fall.
final thoughts
A Blossoming Mom helps us accentuate the precious moments of fall with rich, welcoming colors as we celebrate the best of the end of the growing season.