Last year I had a colourful,  long lasting display of short Chrysanthemums grown in pots. The purple variety had hundreds of flowers on each plant and looked good despite a general lack of care other than the frequent watering of the container. I have kept them over winter in a cool greenhouse and they are bulking up quite well for another show this year. One problem is that they are not as compact as last year so I will have to see how they perform.

Pot Mum Pointers

• Chrysanthemums start to form buds and flower once the nights start to get longer.
• Spray Chrysanthemums will grow a bit lax if they are over fed but  a balanced feed will suit the pot mums.
• Pinching out the growing tip helps increase the amount of flower. June is the last time I will  pinch out my pot plants this season.
• You can often buy multi-packs of plants suitable for containers or borders even in June. If already in flower I snip the flowers off to get a bushier later flowering plant.
• Put Mums grown as indoor plants can be planted outdoors. They may have been treated with chemicals to modify the plants behaviour so you wont necessarily get the same result outdoors.

Chrysanthemums come in all sorts of shapes and sizes but to me they are an Autumn flower. Why then are the retailers now full of the short densly flowering ‘Pot Mum’ that are often given as house plants.

• I have bought a pack of 6 and cut off all the flowers ( this had the effect of pinching them out and channeling the energy into building a bushy plant)
• Then I potted them up into there own 4inch pots
• They got a good watering with a small dose of nitrogen based feed
• Within a week they are putting on green growth and average 3 shoots where there was one previously
• When the pot is full of roots I will put them into bigger pots or into planters
• Ultimately they will be put outside or into final pots to provide a mass of blooms in late summer
• They will then be watered with a 50% dilution of tomato feed
• If the garden pot is large I will put 3 or even 5 plants into each pot but at the moment it looks like one plant will fill a biggish pot.