Home » Blog » Mum’s the Word: Secrets of Hardy Mums Mum’s the Word: Secrets of Hardy Mums August 19, 2013 Education, Fall, Flowers, Perennials, Plants, Seasonal, Timely Tips, Van Putte Gardens The year-round gardener knows that when the weather starts cooling off at night and families are thinking back-to-school, it’s the right time to begin thinking about autumn gardens. For many folks, hardy mums are an indispensable part of a fall garden — gorgeous color and abundances of blooms during a part of the year in which many summer perennial staples are just offering up deadheading practice rather than plentiful flowers. Each year the Van Putte Gardens greenhouse staff cultivates thousands of mums in over a dozen colors, and the months of work are now coming to fruition. The mums are truly stellar this year, and we are so excited to get them out into their new homes! To make sure your mums stay looking their best throughout the autumn season, read on… Keep mums in full sun. They need at least 6 hours of sun per day to keep flowering prolifically. If you are planting them in the ground, adding compost to the soil will give them the nutrients they need to root in more quickly and firmly. However, do not fertilize past August 1 — this will help prevent extreme late season growth and allow the plant to go dormant at the proper time. To overwinter mums, plant them at least 6 weeks before a killing frost. They need time to root in, so if you plant them in November, they won’t have a great chance of coming back the next year. Don’t cut back the foliage in the fall. When mums stop blooming and the foliage turns brown, resist the urge to clean up and instead, leave that foliage alone. Keeping mums intact through the winter will insulate the roots beneath, giving your mum a better chance of surviving what we all know can be some pretty harsh Rochester winter weather. In fact, adding some evergreen boughs or mulch is a good idea for additional insulation. You can prune off the existing branches in the spring when the threat of snow has passed. A note on mum varieties: Beyond the initial difference between florist and hardy mums (florist mums are not perennial like hardy mums), sometimes folks get confused by the differences between varieties of hardy mums. The hardy mums at Van Putte’s are Belgian and Yoder mums, and we are growing in 9″ pots this year to give them ample room to stretch their legs, err…. roots. (We have big 12″ and 14″ pots too, for those who want to make a true autumn statement!) These mums don’t need to be pinched back like some other hardy mums since they readily branch on their own. As you can see above, they have a naturally branching, mounded growth habit with abundant buds (often hundreds of buds at a time on one plant!), which we love. If you follow the guidelines above, they should come back year after year and make your fall garden pop with color!