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On A Limb / September 2007
How to Transplant a Blooming Mum
Spring is the best time to plant chrysanthemums, but you can set out blooming plants in fall if you’re careful, according to Barbara Pleasant from doityourself.com
Here’s how to help them survive their first winter in the ground.
Select bushy, well-branched plants with small, leafy stems emerging from the base of the plants, or sprouting around the edge of the pot.
Choose a very well-drained location. More fall-planted mums die from root rot than from the effects of low temperatures.
Dig a planting hole twice as wide as the plant’s rootball.
Set each plant in the planting hole 1 inch deeper than it grew in its nursery pot; spread out the roots.
After cold weather kills the flowers and leaves, water only if the soil becomes very dry. Trim back tops very slightly, mostly to remove dead blossoms.
Leave plants unmulched until Christmas. If by then, you have no snow cover, lay conifer boughs over the plants’ crowns.
Should you decide to move your mum, wait until near the time of your last spring frost. That’s the best time to dig and divide any garden chrysanthemum.
When growth resumes in spring (or just after transplanting), work 1/4 cup of low-nitrogen fertilizer (such as a 10-10-10) into the soil around each plant.
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