Looking for an update on whether or not my mums made it through the winter? Sadly they did not. But I learned what I did wrong and I’m confident that they will survive this year.
Now that we know the best time to plant chrysanthemums is in the spring we can all be better gardeners. However, I still only find chrysanthemums available in the fall. So we are just going to have to make the most of our fall garden mums.
If you missed my first post about planting garden mums you can read Chrysanthemums: When To Plant Garden Mums here.
Update On Last Year’s Mums
I told you in my last post that I would move the planters into our building so that they would have a cool dark place to go dormant for the winter. I failed. I moved them into the garage because it was closer, it was easier, and they were heavy. I was punished for taking the easy path.
At first, I thought I was doing great. I kept them watered once a week. It was cool in the garage. It was dark (most of the time). But then, they sprouted! Seems like that was the plan, right? Wrong. It was too early. I tried to keep them alive until it was warm enough to plant them but they couldn’t survive in the garage.
Looking back I should have planted them and hoped for the best. But I really don’t think that they would have survived being planted that early. They needed to stay dormant about a month longer than they did. It was my fault for keeping them in the garage. The building would have been a better choice and I will do that this year to continue my experiment.
On the bright side, they did stay alive through the winter! I do believe that bringing them inside and keeping them in the right conditions will allow me to plant them in the spring.
Year Two Experiment
This year I bought 3 mums to put in the planters and 3 mums that I planted in the ground. I am going to do my best to keep both sets of mums watered over the winter so that they all come back to life next year.
I’m kicking myself as I write this post because I didn’t take pictures when I first planted the bright and colorful mums. I deadheaded them last week and then we had an early freeze a few days ago. So they are currently between blooms and not looking their best. I will try to get a picture as soon as all of the new blooms are bright again.
I’m was also planning on trying to grow some chrysanthemums from seeds this year so that they are ready to be planted in the spring. But I quickly learned that you can’t buy chrysanthemum seeds because they are a hybrid plant. You have to grow them from cuttings propagated from a plant. I’m not sure if I’m ready to tackle propagating yet but I’ll let you know.
Check back next year and see how my experiment went!
Post your comments below to let me know if your chrysanthemums survived the winter.