Do all mums make good cut flowers?
Yes they do. They often last for weeks, especially if you freshen the water and keep them out of direct sun. Mums that you buy as cut flowers have longer stems. Longer stems can be encouraged by pinching the plants only once in early summer. Can I grow the big football (exhibition) mums? Football mums grow well here, but they are not winter hardy and do take more work. Will pinching affect the size of the blooms or just the number? By limiting the number of branches, you will get larger blooms. You can also encourage larger blooms by pinching less often or disbudding the branches. To disbud, you remove the little branches that appear at the leaf axils every 10 days or so. This will give you the biggest flowers, but there won’t be very many. Mums that are being encouraged to develop large blooms should be staked or supported in some manner. How much sun and what kind of soil do mums need? To do their best, mums need full sun. Too little sun will result in tall, leggy plants that won’t b
