Mums: FAQ and Common Issues
We believe growing mums is a great way to add profit to your business. In our eight years of selling mums, we’ve learned quite a bit. Here are answers to the common questions and issues we see our customers face.
My mums were broken in shipment. Will any of them survive?
We try to package our plants as tightly as possible, but sometimes damages do happen during shipment. We guarantee viable plants upon arrival, so even if they’re destroyed during shipment, we’ll take care of you. If the mum plugs are broken but there are still a few nodes growing in the soil, they almost always make a full recovery!
Recently, someone posted in one of the greenhouse Facebook groups asking if their broken mums would be okay. In less than a day, there were 22 responses saying that they would be fine. Just pinch them off where they were broken, and they should grow out just like normal.
What kind of soil should I use? (Should I use peat moss?)
Garden mums grow well in a well-drained, loose, soilless media. Bark based mixes with a little peat work well. Be sure to plant rooted cuttings as soon as they arrive in moist media. This will give you a little time to transplant all of your plugs before watering them in. Do not use any type of water retaining gel. This will create root disease.
What brand of fertilizer do you use? Where can I get it? I need help finding that exact balance.
We suggest a 3-phase fertilizing program for mums, beginning with 20-20-20 fertilizer at 250 ppm, then 20-10-20 fertilizer at 300 ppm, and ending with 15-5-30 fertilizer at 250 ppm. If this is your first time growing mums or you’re growing fewer than 400 mums, you can get away with only using the 20-10-20 fertilizer. There is no particular brand of fertilizer we prefer, and finding the exact numbers we list may sometimes be challenging. As long as you get as close to those numbers as possible, it should be fine in most cases.
If you need more than a couple of bags of fertilizer, you should be able to find a local supplier who will deliver it to you. Of course, it never hurts to compare prices online!
The most common questions we receive are about fertilizing. We have covered this topic in depth in two of our blogs. The first takes an in-depth look at fertilizing mums. The second is about how to mix your fertilizer.
Should I use mum netting?
If you are shooting for a regular 8″ mum pan with a 16″ canopy, you can probably get away without netting. Anything larger than that will benefit from having the netting give the canopy extra support in retaining its shape.
There has been a lot of rain, will my plants be okay?
For many areas, summer is storm season. If you’re experiencing a heavy amount of rain, this could affect your mum crop’s growth. We recommend checking your soil’s pH. Rain can wash the fertilizer nutrients from the soil, resulting in nutrient deficiency. If you have yellowing leaves or drooping, this may be your issue. In most cases, you will still need to irrigate the plants just to replace the nutrients that got washed away.
Is it too hot to put my new plugs out in the direct sun?
While they may stress a little, it is usually best to go ahead and get them planted and go right out into the mum field. If it is unusually hot and you see a cool down coming, you can wait a couple of days. But in general, we want to get them in the soil and growing. Remember to plant them deep and water them in well. This will help keep them cooler.
Any leaf burn from the shock of going right out into the sunlight will be okay. The plant will grow out of this quickly and replace those leaves with fresh ones that are accustomed to the full sun.
Roots are growing out of the bottom of the pot. Is this okay?
Roots growing out of the bottom of the pot are a sign of a healthy and active root system. It is not uncommon for this to happen. If they are growing out of the bottom of the pot, it is okay to trim them back when you are pulling them to sell.
Why is this one color in my combo pot not growing?
If you’ve planted mums that are not in the same family, the growth habits can vary. When planting mum combo pots, we recommend using mums from the same family. For example: Padre yellow, Padre Orange, and Padre Cerise are recommended for a mid-September bloomer by the breeder!
Some colors from the same family will still grow at different speeds when stressed. So, if one is outgrowing another, ensure your fertilizer concentrations are right, that they are getting the right amount of water, and check for other factors that may be stressing them.
What can I spray them with to prevent and get rid of caterpillars?
Dipel is a great biological insecticide for caterpillar control. It is specifically designed to control them without harming pollinators and beneficial insects.
Should I pinch them? They are not growing round, just up.
These are no-pinch varieties, meaning they do not have to be pinched. As long as they are in direct sun they should round off just fine. However, you can pinch if you wish or use florel to induce branching. Likewise, as said above, if the tips get broken in shipping, go ahead and pinch those broken pieces off. They will grow out just fine.
Why are they budding early?
Mums can bloom when stressed and will bloom again when they are supposed to as long as the stress factor is resolved. Too much or too little fertilizer, too much water or rain, too much heat, or even cool nights in the summer can cause them to set premature buds. Once these factors are resolved, they will return to vegetative growth.
The color of bud is not the right color?
Give them some time to open up. It is not uncommon for the initial bud to be a little off from the true flower color. If the color is off a little once the flowers have opened fully, we could be looking at a nutrient problem. It doesn’t happen often, but if the color is completely wrong there could have been a mixup from the farm that produced the cuttings. If they are indeed the wrong color, please contact our office so that we can start a claim.