October Updates From the Nursery & Mum Advice

We’ve got a ton of pumpkins and mums, just unbelievable amounts, so lots to choose from. Selection’s as good now as it’s been all season, and probably peak this week, I would imagine. We’ll start a trail off after this week. We’ll still have a lot of products, but this should be the peak week, best selection. And it’s late enough now, the pumpkins should last. That’s one of the problems with giving them too early, especially if they’re in a sunny, warm location. All of our stuff’s protected from the rain, and when we bring it in, we store it up top, and then it all gets priced and put out.

And we have a lot of mums still, tons of mums, and a lot of stuff for changing out your planters for fall. So all of our four and six inch fall annuals that you use for those planters, those are on buy one, get one free now.

Let’s talk about the mums. That is always a question, are they hardy? So the sooner you get them in the ground, the better that your chances are of them coming back. It is always kind of a gamble, we are getting later. The best thing to do is to protect them, like if you do want them to come back from year to year, a lot of people treat them like annuals, just because they can be a lot of work if they do come back.

They like a lot of fertilizer. A lot of people don’t realize that with a mum, when a mum comes back, you need to trim that mum back in June sometime. They usually, once they start getting a second set of leaves, that’s when you have to start pinching them back, which if not, they will get like two foot tall, and you’ll have like three blooms on them. They’ll get leggy, they’ll bloom out early, so there is maintenance to get it to look like it looks every fall. Nice and full and bushy. So a lot of times, because they are pretty cheap and cost effective, and there’s so many pretty colors, most people just toss them and get new ones next year. Because usually they never look as good.

The earlier you plant them, the better chance they have to root in, and the better they root in, the higher likelihood of them coming back. Now that brings up a good point as far as trimming fall plants. Not only mums, but what else should people focus on?

It is a little early yet to be cutting down perennials and that kind of stuff. You do want to let them go dormant on their own, as the leaves start to yellow and fall off, through a couple of frosts usually. At 37 degrees and lower is where dew is going basically into frost crystals. So dew is going to turn into frost crystals, that frost crystals are going to cause that plant to go dormant and basically go to sleep for fall.

There are a lot of plants you do not want to trim in the fall. Your magnolias already have their flower buds set, rhododendrons, azaleas, and certain lilacs are going to have their flower buds set. And if you trim them now, you cut the flowers off in the spring that you’re supposed to enjoy. So those types of items we want to trim in the spring as soon as the plant’s done blooming. Immediately after it’s done blooming, that’s when we trim those plants.

Questions? Email us at [email protected] or call one of our two locations: Portage (330-499-0101) or Everhard (330-492-1243).