Mum’s the Word by Carla Allen

The first thing I did after buying three pots of mums was to bring them home and replant them into larger pots. Typically, the selling pots are planted very thickly and because the plants have received plenty of fertilization, the root ball fills the space tightly.

Repotting provides a bit of breathing space and you’ll notice the plants don’t have to be watered as often as if you’d left them in the original pot.

Continue fertilizing the plants at half strength with a water soluble fertilizer and they should continue blooming well into October. If there are still plenty of flowers on them at that point, remember to set the pots inside your door overnight to protect them from forecasted frost, then place them outside again during the day.

Around the middle of November, dig a hole large enough to contain the root ball. Remove the plant from the pot and tuck the roots into the hole. Place brush or straw lightly over the mums.

Next April dig the plant back up again, and shake the soil from the roots. You have the choice of replanting the chrysanthemum into a pot with new potting soil, or planting it in your garden. Actually you should be able to rip it into sections to accomplish both. Add generous handfuls of compost and bonemeal around the roots.

Once the stems reach a height of about five inches in May or early June, snip the top three inches off. You can tuck these into new ground and water them so they will form roots to make new plants. The snippings will provide you with a large colony of new chrysanthemums.

You can continue snipping back twice more as late as August 15 to encourage a bushy plant full of fall blooms.

Chrysanthemums sold in pots this time of year were started earlier in greenhouses.

Fertilize the plants each week and by next fall you will be rewarded with more heavily budded mums, potentially as pretty as the ones you started out with.