Why I Oughta...

Tired of those Mums that you bought for your front porch keep splaying wide open and flopping over, revealing an empty crown?  That's what happens when the tips of the flower stems get weighted down with the blooms, as they open up and grow.  That is...if you keep them alive until then.  Mums are hard to make work, but when they do, they're beautiful.   So, you likely know all the tips by now:  soak the root ball in water.  Water from the bottom-up.  Don't buy them too early in the season. Here's the best tip I can give you in terms of something you can do to keep them looking good: Wire them up.   Wrap a wire or string around the stems to corral them together.  And, keep the crown of the mums together and the stems upright. Here, below are a couple of photos of the Mums we brought home for our front porch this weekend.  I used padded garden wire around the stems: I also placed the nursery pot into a garden trug that is full of...

You bought that big container of mums and put them on your porch.  They look good.  Now, the tough part:  keeping them alive.  And keeping them from flopping wide open and splaying. First the 'keeping them alive' part.  It is pretty easy:  water them.  And, even better...'bottom water' them via a bucket or pan that they can sit-in.  Otherwise, drag your hose over there and keep 'em wet every few days.  If you're like me and you're dragging your hose around to try to eek out the final few dahlia blooms, then just stop at your mums and spray them down. As for the second part:  keeping them from splaying wide open?  That part is pretty easy too:  Wire them up.  Here's a post that I shared all the way back in 2017 that is popular every Fall: ProTip: Tie Up Your Mums .  Every Fall since then, we've done the same thing.  Buy the big set of Mums.  Use some twine or garden wire around the perimeter of the blooms to...