Mum is the Word

University of California Cooperative Extension/El Dorado Master Gardener

By Robin Stanley

Publication Date: December 3, 2004

Hasn’t this been a glorious fall in El Dorado County? Lots of the old timers say they can’t remember such beautiful fall color, to say nothing of how long it lasted. Our early October rains and cool weather certainly had a welcome payoff. While this may be an unusual fall, there are some ways you can always guarantee fall color, and it’s not up above in the trees, it’s down at ground level in your flower garden. Mum’s the word – chrysanthemums, that is.

UCCE Master Gardeners recently traveled down Highway 88 for a field trip to King’s Mums, near Clement, just south of Amador County. King’s is one of the largest mail order sources of mums in the world, and fall is definitely the time to pay them a visit. The owner, Ted King, spent time teaching us about the selection and care of mums before turning us loose in the greenhouses. I’m convinced that heaven is wall to wall chrysanthemums, just like King’s. It is truly a sight to behold. While many of us grow mums, we all discovered some new varieties and gained some additional information about successfully growing mums during our visit.

According to Ted, chrysanthemums are one of the oldest flowers in the world. Originally native to China, the chrysanthemum was later imported to Japan. That would explain the mum motif in so many oriental fabrics. Today, mums are grown all over the world.

Here in El Dorado County, we are lucky to be able to grow mums without a lot of trouble. Mums like full sun, especially during the winter. Plants grown in too much winter shade are prone to rotting. But it takes more than sun to keep mums happy. Ted began his talk by telling us how to care for the mums we would purchase that day. Since all the mums they sell this time of year are at or near peak bloom, most people will keep them in their pots while they continue to bloom. Mums are perennials, so they will bloom year after year with the proper care. As with mums planted in the garden, he advised we deadhead the spent blooms and then watch for new growth coming up from the base of the plant. Once the new growth is well out of the ground, you can prune off the old stems.

Mums come in a wide range of colors, from white to yellow and orange to dark red and purple. They range in size from small cushion mums with blooms of about 1” to giant spider mums that are about 8” across. At King’s, they have a whole section of mums that have been disbudded for show –all but one stem and one bud have been removed to force the energy of the plant into the one remaining flower. Growers who want to enter flowers in competition typically do this to create the largest possible bloom. While these flowers are striking for their size and quality, most gardeners opt for smaller and more numerous flowers in their home landscape.

But no matter what your final goal, chrysanthemums do need to be trimmed/pruned throughout the growing season to keep them from being leggy in the fall. An old rule of thumb for mums was “knee high by the 4^th of July”. My husband often has to remind me that since I am not a 7 foot tall basketball star, my knees are not really 3 feet high. Without his prodding, that is where I might tend to cut my mums. Better you should follow the advice on the King’s website (http://www.kingsmums.com/). They recommend you cut plants back to 4-6”in early July and then pinch back the growing tips of smaller flowered plants for the next month or so to keep the plants compact and well shaped. For larger flowered plants, don’t pinch back after July 1. If you wait to cut back your mums until too late in the season, you will delay and reduce their blooms.

The timing of bloom for mums varies from variety to variety. With proper selection, you can have a range of mums blooming from June through November. At King’s, the mums bloomed late this year. They also treat their mums with a hormone which delays blooming, so that the mums are all blooming in synch to put on a spectacular show. Exposing mums to repeated evening light (such as from security lights or lights from windows) can also delay blooming.

By the time you are reading this article, it will be too late for this year’s peak mum bloom. Often, the mums you find in floral departments or nurseries have been forced into bloom throughout the year to give the public bloom on demand. If you purchase these mums, you can still follow the guidelines above for care and transplanting to encourage repeated blooming. Depending on how close to autumn you purchase your blooming plant, it may not bloom again until the next fall. But with proper care, mums can come back year after year, giving you a riot of color in your landscape and handfuls of bouquets to brighten your home.