Le Clos

Garden mums can provide brilliant color to home gardens between the warm and cool bedding plant seasons. Pictured here are several varieties of mums that can be grown in fall gardens.

Photo by: BlueStone Perrenials

Chris Robichaux, Ph. D.
Crobichaux@agcenter.lsu.edu

With fall approaching, garden mums become one of the popular plants available for home landscape use.

Garden mums fill the gap between the end of the warm season bedding plant season and the true beginning of the cool season bedding plant season. You may also want to try them in a landscape bed combined with the low growing Wave series of petunias or French varieties of dwarf marigolds.
Mums provide cool season color from September through early November most years. When purchasing garden mums select top quality plants and select varieties that will bloom early, mid and late in the season. Flower colors are abundant in garden mums. Yellow, pink, white, bronze, lavender, purple and others are available. Two-toned bicolor flowers have also been recently introduced.
Garden mums perform well in full to partial sun; six hours of direct sun is ideal. Be sure to properly prepare a landscape bed by improving aeration and internal drainage with additions of pine bark or some other form of organic matter. Select a site protected from northern and windy exposures. Provide about two feet between plants. Close spacing results in leggy, upright growth. After planting, apply about three pounds of a slow-release fertilizer per 100 square feet of bed area. Broadcast the fertilizer uniformly over the entire bed area and lightly water in. Mulch with a one-inch layer of pine bark, shredded pine straw or a similar material.
Since fall typically is a dry period in Louisiana, be aware that lack of water on garden mums delays flowering, slows or stops growth and increases susceptibility to pest pressures. Proper moisture leads to a very successful garden mum crop. It is also imperative to avoid overhead irrigation. It is best to water only the bed area or around the dripline of each plant. Do not soak garden mums at the base of each plant. This will result in stem rot problems.
To pursue garden mums being a perennial plant once they have been properly placed in your landscape consider the following: Keep soil moist (not wet) through the winter months. Prune lightly several times between March and June next year. Continue mulching efforts. Maintain good insect and disease management strategies. Lightly fertilize next spring with a slow-release fertilizer. Garden mums will bloom according to natural day length conditions again next year.
For more horticulture information, contact Chris Robichaux, Ph.D., county agent, St. Martin/Iberia parishes, at 332-2181 or 369-4440.