Crysanthemums

Despite unbear­able heat this time last week, it seems autumn has com­pletely enveloped us. I sup­pose hav­ing lived here my whole life it is about time I get used to the volatil­ity of our cli­mate! Luck­ily it is the per­fect time to plant mums. Mums are the absolute icon of the sea­son, bloom­ing in deep gold, but­tery ivory, gor­geous bur­gundy, vivid yel­low, and dark vio­let they cap­ture the essence of the sea­son. While “mum” is always applied to the com­mon gar­den vari­ety of the crysan­the­mum fam­ily, there are actu­ally about 30 dif­fer­ent varieties.

Crysan­the­mum was first cul­ti­vated in China dur­ing the 15th cen­tury, how­ever is thought to be native to Japan. It was taken to Europe dur­ing the 17th cen­tury and named by com­bin­ing the Greek words chrysous and anthe­mon. Chrysous means golden, refer­ring to the orig­i­nal color of the bloom and anthe­mon mean­ing flower. Inter­est­ingly one vari­ety of crysan­the­mum is com­monly used as an envi­ron­men­tally friendly insec­ti­cide, as it is only harm­ful to insects and safe for birds and mam­mals. While asso­ci­ated with pos­i­tive sen­ti­ment and the chang­ing of the sea­son for most of the world, in Italy, France, Bel­gium and Aus­tria mums are a sym­bol of grief — usu­ally used to adorn graves and sent to fam­i­lies who lost someone.

The com­mon gar­den mums, or hardy mums, are the con­densed plants full of small blooms that flood the mar­ket in the late sum­mer and early autumn. How­ever some of their more exotic look­ing cousins will grow here per­fectly well also, such as the Spi­der and the show-stopping Irreg­u­lar Incurve. Actu­ally there are wild crysan­the­mum coro­nar­ium bloom­ing right now here in Cen­tral Ohio. I have seen them along var­i­ous roads in Delaware County; usu­ally along some kind of wall that pro­vides pro­tec­tion in the win­ter. It is some­thing of a mis­con­cep­tion that gar­den mums over-winter eas­ily here in Ohio. Despite tech­ni­cally being peren­ni­als they require a sig­nif­i­cant amount of prepa­ra­tion and care for win­ter, as well as a spot that is shel­tered from exces­sive snow cover, wind, and cold. Accord­ing to OSU Fact Sheet HYG-1219–92 “The gar­den chrysan­the­mum, in most instances, should be con­sid­ered an annual flower by home­own­ers. There­fore, when frost kills the tops of the plants, cut off the dead stems and remove from the gar­den. Some­times, mums will come up the next spring if just the tops of the plants are cut off. If you pre­fer to try to keep them over win­ter, cut off the dead tops and cover the plants with mulch to a depth of three to four inches.”

That being said, there are many peo­ple (includ­ing some Delaware County Mas­ter Gar­den­ers) who suc­cess­fully enjoy their mums year after year. If you do over-winter your mums this year, an impor­tant task next spring and sum­mer will be pinch­ing the plant to keep its desir­able shape, encour­age as many blooms as pos­si­ble, and ensure the bloom is right now in the early autumn not in the early sum­mer. Pinch­ing is not only for aes­thet­ics but for the health of the plant as well. If mums are not pinched back dur­ing the sum­mer, the plant will become too tall and leggy not allow­ing light to reach the lower leaves. Prop­erly pinch­ing is quite easy to do: “New shoots should have the tops removed by pinch­ing them off between the thumb and fore­fin­ger. This prac­tice should be fol­lowed, leav­ing two or three leaves on the shoot, when­ever it becomes three to four inches long. This prac­tice can be timed so that the fer­til­iz­ing and pinch­ing can be done the same day. This will usu­ally be once a month from May-July. How­ever, with most gar­den cul­ti­vars, the last pinch should be made no later than August 1. If pinch­ing is con­tin­ued after this date, flower buds will be elim­i­nated from the plants. It may be sug­gested with some cul­ti­vars that the last pinch should not be made later than July 15. If it is, fol­low the direc­tions given.”

In late August when the nurs­eries and even gro­ceries begin to set dis­plays of mums, it is a promise that the beauty and more mild weather of autumn is just around the cor­ner. The crysan­the­mum fam­ily con­tains stun­ning blooms of all col­ors and palettes mak­ing it obvi­ous why they have been prized for cen­turies. Mums are the defin­i­tive plant of the fall and no autum­nal gar­den is com­plete with­out them.

Stephen Jones is an OSU Exten­sion Mas­ter Gar­dener volunteer.

Pre­serv­ing Your Herbal Har­vest edu­ca­tion series — Join the Delaware County Mas­ter Gar­den­ers on Sep­tem­ber 24 for an herbal pro­gram at Deer Haven Pre­serve, 4183 Lib­erty Road, Delaware from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Top­ics are Laven­der, Pesto Pos­si­bil­i­ties and Savor­ing the Sum­mer. Cost of $25.00 includes a light break­fast, an herbal lunch and bev­er­ages. Reg­is­tra­tion dead­line is Sept. 16. Seat­ing is limited.

Posted by Master Gardener on Sep 10 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.