More About Mums & Keeping Alive
Mary would like to know, ‘are there different kinds of mums and are they all available right now?’
There are different kinds of mums, there’s a floral mum which most garden centers do not carry. They have a bigger bloom to them. That’s something that usually is not available right now. That would be something that you can get a little bit later closer to thanksgiving. It’s not hardy.
There’s a floral mum and then there’s a hardy mum. Even at that I just want to be very clear, hardy mums really still are very, very tender. I would never plant a mum thinking that it will come back.
If you cut it back after it blooms and cover it with some leaves and mulch and watered it really well, your chances are a little bit better. Your best case scenario and you do everything right, it’s still not a very high chance that they will come back repeatedly and sometimes they do, but I would say 80% of the time they don’t, even the hardy mums.
They’re all similar in their hardiness here. There’s no certain color that comes back more than another color. You would think white is usually like a more dominant one. With white shrubs and perennials it’s usually a first cultivar, so white shrubs might be hardier in some instances, but in mums, it’s probably not that way.
It just is kind of the luck of the draw to be honest. And I know people don’t want to hear that but it just really is true. I mean even everything done right, the perfect winter, you know it’s just one of those plants. I would say whenever you buy one just think to yourself it’s probably just for the season, and if it comes back then it’s a bonus.
If your mums do come back, one thing to keep in mind is you need to cut it if you want it to bloom in the fall. Right around the fourth of July, it’ll be big and beautiful. So if you want it to bloom in the fall you do need to cut it back almost to the ground. Cut it back like you would be cutting something back in the fall. You cut it back to maybe four inches from the ground and that will make it bloom in the fall. If you do not do that, it will bloom in July, and then it’ll be done.
So that’s something to keep in mind if you do plant mums and you have them that come back, that’s something that you need to get you need to do in the summertime for it to bloom in the fall. A lot of water and fertilizer after that trim back too, especially that time of year with as dry as it usually is in July. That’s always a good idea too. It doesn’t usually get that far, but if it does get that far and you could do that.
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