By Ron Dieter, Sunnyfield Greenhouse & Gardens

September 2, 1998

With the upcoming Labor Day weekend, many families have guests coming in for the festivities and want their patios and planters looking sharp. Unless you’re wanting Christmas items, the garden sections at the discount stores won’t be much help this time of year.  So a last minute trip to the local nursery will be on the agenda to find some color.  Maybe a nice hanging basket or one of those flower pouches will be just the thing to add some last-minute summer color to the deck or front porch.

In a few weeks, summer will be over officially and everyone will be in the "fall frame of mind."  The colors of summer annuals in patio pots and deck planters will seem a little worn and passe.  That's the time to renew those planters with the flowers of the season.

Of course, fall flowers means chrysanthemums.  To be botanically correct, I should say Dendranthema. The taxonomists (plant-namers) decided to reclassify the Chrysanthemum genus and break it down into more "genuses".  Originally, garden mums, Shasta daisies, painted daisies, and a bunch of others were all Chrysanthemums.  Now, chrysanthemums are Dendranthema, shastas are Leucanthemum, and painted daisies are Tanacetum.  Nothing is Chrysanthemum any more.   I’m sure glad they cleared all that up for us, aren’t you?

Well, anyway, today’s garden mums come in about a gazillion different colors and petal shapes.  In fact the breeders have worked so hard giving us more colors than we need that much of the winter hardiness has been lost that would make mums a reliable perennial.  "Hardy mums" is a misnomer for these modern varieties.   Because they are shallow-rooted, mums often do not survive the winter here without some extra attention and luck, especially when planted in the fall.  Spring-planted mums have several months to establish the good root system needed to endure the harsh winter season.  Right now you’re thinking, "Grandma’s mums lasted for years."  No doubt, and some starts of those old garden mums, are your best bet for winter hardy plants.

Hardiness aside, fall mums are great fall container plants.  The bright rich colors of mums are stunning in large clay pots or patio planters.  If you have a patio pot that looks a little worn out, replace the plants that have seen better days with mums.  Leave the vinca vine, ivy, lotus, or sweet potato vine in the pot and replace the impatiens, petunias, or geraniums with garden mums.  Instantly you’ve got a great looking fall planter that will last until Jack Frost finishes them off.

If you want to try mums in the garden, plant them in the ground as soon as you buy them. The later they’re planted, the less likely they’ll greet you in the spring.  When a good freeze kills the tops, don’t cut the plant back to the ground. Instead, use the skeleton of the plant to hold a protective layer of mulch in place.  Use chopped leaves or straw.  The idea is to keep the ground around the plant from thawing and refreezing, eventually heaving the shallow-rooted mum up out of the ground. It’s best if the ground freezes and stays frozen.