By T.C. Conner

The Write Gardener



Fall officially began yesterday at 5:18 p.m. And that means chrysanthemums will start showing up everywhere. How did these showy members of the aster family become one of the most recognizable signs of autumn? I suspect it had something to do with plant propagators and the need for color in the fall garden.

Mums date back to the 15th century, when China first cultivated them as flowering herbs. The roots were thought to be a cure for headaches, and leaves were used in salads and brewed in teas. The Chinese so honored the chrysanthemum that they named a city after the flower – Chu-Hsien, which translates “Chrysanthemum City.”

Sometime around 1753, Carl Linnaeus caught wind of the plant and took it upon himself to assign the botanical name “chrysanthemum.” He combined the Greek words “chrysos,” meaning “gold colored,” and “anthemom” which means “flowered.” Gold must’ve been the predominant color of mums back in the day; now you see mums in various shades of magenta, yellow, orange, pink, red and white.

In order for mums to be hardy here in our zone (5 or 6, depending on who you ask) they should have stolons. Stolons are shoots that bend to the ground or that grow horizontally above the ground and produce roots and shoots at the nodes. Seasonal mums for fall display gardens do not usually have stolons because most are short-term decorative plants that are discarded once the first hard frost hits. However, some non-hardy mums might overwinter here if in a microclimate (close to the house, protected from the elements and heavily mulched).

The National Chrysanthemum Society states on their Web site: “Since the chrysanthemum was first introduced into the United States during colonial times, its popularity has grown such that mums now reign as undisputed ‘Queen of the Fall Flowers.’”

Using mums in fall displays is easy. We leave the plants in the pots they came in and set them down inside containers that used to hold our summer annuals.

Other items frequently used in conjunction with mums are pumpkins and gourds. We’ve got both growing here, but the gourds aren’t quite ready to pick just yet so we’re using pumpkins in our fall displays. Bales of straw or hay, dried cornstalks and spent sunflower stalks are also good to use. Farmers that live close to you will usually allow you to cut a few dried corn stalks if you ask nicely. Tied together and propped on the straw bale, surrounded by pumpkins and potted mums, cornstalks make an attractive fall display.

Mums are related to dahlias, sunflowers, marigolds, zinnias and cosmos. The relationship is easy to see when you compare the flowers of each. There are 13 identification groups, or classes of mums: Irregular incurve; reflex; regular incurve; decorative; intermediate incurve; pompon; single and semi-double; anemone; spoon; quill; spider; brush and thistle; and unclassified. (For a good graphic of each class, visit the National Chrysanthemum Society’s Web site at: www.mums.org/journal/articles/classifications_bw.htm.)

You might wonder if the mums you buy at the big box stores are hardy to our zone. Will they survive through the winter to bloom again next year?

I spoke with fellow master gardener Dennis James who owns DJ’s Greenhouse in Transfer (1004 East Lake Road) about this and he cleared up a little confusion for me. He said hardy mums are not necessarily perennial mums. In other words, “what we call hardy mums are mums that can usually take a light to moderate frost through the fall season,” James said. These mums may or may not overwinter in zone 5 gardens.

Garden mums, or perennial mums, are ones you can be sure to see color from year after year, as long as you take care of them once the first killing frosts are past. After they die back, mulch your perennial mums with a 4- to 6-inch layer of straw. Remove the mulch in spring and cut back dead plant material from the previous season. You can work in a good all-purpose organic fertilizer in early spring and once every two weeks or so through the growing season.

If you’re unsure about your box store mums surviving through the winter, why not plant them out in the garden and conduct a little experiment? Mulch one, and not the other; place one close to the house, the other out by the shed or in the middle of one of your flower beds. You might find a micro-climate somewhere that those “average Joe” mums you bought for $2.99 will find perfect for their new home, come snow or high water!



T.C. Conner is a Master Gardener and columnist for Allied News. He can be reached at tc@thewritegardener.com. Check out his blog at http://the writegardener.blogspot.com. Published Sept. 23, 2009 in Allied News. Pick up a copy at 201A Erie St., Grove City.