Can you ??

[candlemissy]

I bought 2 Chrysanthemum's yesterday pretty big ones, can you plant them outside and if so will they come back year after year? Thanks..

[lavender]

Yes, they can go outside and they will come back. Mums prefer well drained soil. One of the major reasons that they don't return in the spring is "wet feet".

There are mums that aren't hardy here but unless you bought them at a florist you probably didn't get those.

[Petee]

The Mums in the Historical Society beds came back with such energy that they took over the beds and they had to go.

 

Mulch them well over the winter or cover them with a styrofoam cone.  Just be sure to remove mulch from the center first thing in the spring so it can get air circulation.  You can leave the mulch on the outer portion of the root system but the crown needs to be a little elevated.

 

Where I live it's sometimes 10 degrees colder than in town and they will not overwinter here, so if you have a warm protected spot, that's where they will stand the best chance of coming back.  

 

You can also keep them in big pots in the ground, lift them in the fall and bring them into a sheltered garage or shed that has a little bit of heat and then put them back out in the spring.  They will get bigger every year to the point that you can divide them.

[lavender]

While there are many ways of growing plants I would hesitate to do anything to a mum that would keep the ground from freezing solid and staying frozen during the winter. Heavy mulch keeps the ground from freezing and rose cones tend to allow heat to build up thawing the ground under them. Thier purpose is to keep above the ground parts of a plant from winter damage. A mum will not carry live foliage through the winter.

A better method is to mound soil up around the crown and when the ground freezes to use pine boughs or straw. You can also use wood chips or anything that allows air to circulate to a depth of about 4 inches. Leaf mulches that mat can be fatal. Remember that the purpose of a mulch is not to keep the roots warm but to keep the soil from thawing duing the winter. Thawed, wet soil will cause the roots to rot in many plants, mums included.

I live back in the woods in a valley where the cold air settles in the winter. It is the rare mum that will grow in my heavy, badly drained clay soil. They do thrive and grow to bushel basket size in raised beds that have some protection. The only mulch I use is a couple of inches of bark to keep weeds down. I'm conviced that drainage is just as important as temperature as to whether a mum will make it through the winter.

Also, the hariness of mums varies. Some are hardy to zone three (we are zone 5) and some of the so called "hardy" ones are only really hardy to zone 6, one zone south of us. It is the luck of the draw as the stores around here sell all kinds. Sometimes they will make it through one winter that suits thier needs and will die the next.

[gypsywannabe]

I've never gotten one to winter over. And at $1.50-3.00 per, it's just as easy to choose one that has lots of buds on it and get 4-6 weeks of flowers in the fall and let it go.

[lavender]

It's nice to overwinter them so you get those really big bushel basket mums. Sometimes the mums that are planted in the fall don't have time to get a good root system going. It helps to plant the small ones in the spring. The earlier they are planted the better chance they have of wintering over. A good root system also helps to keep them from heaving out of the ground should the ground freeze and thaw repeatedly through the winter.

[badmonkey]

I haven't had much luck getting them to make it through the winter. I have tried to protect them by mulching but, no luck! I hope that yours do better than mine did.