Growing Potted Mums for Cutting
Hello! We’ve had some more questions about our mum program. The information I shared earlier this season was about pest prevention amongst them. And we stand by the methods explained there — the mint concentrate fogging has been a greenhouse game changer for us in the battle against thrips and aphids. So check out that post if you have questions about pest control.
SOURCING OUR CUTTINGS:
We received out mums as rooted cuttings around May 12 from King’s Mums and Farmer Bailey. (Most of them came from Farmer Bailey’s offering).
The Farmer Bailey cuttings came from his Grow N’ Sell rooted cutting collection- 50 cuttings to an order. These are NOT 3 Porch Farm varieties, which come 3 cuttings to an order and are now also available from Farmer Bailey. These varieties are shorter than some of the super tall heirloom mums that can be grown for cut flowers. And we’ve found that in our setting, these shorter types (tall enough for floral work) do not require staking. However, propagation is prohibited.
These are all “intermediate” blooming varieties. We are also collecting early and late varieties for next year:
50 Shanghai Red (double red and the first to bloom here)
50 Seaside White (double white quilled)
50 Emporia Gold (single yellow)
50 Durange Bronze (double bronze)
50 Emporia Orange (single orange)
50 Pittsburgh Purple (double deep purple)
PROCESS:
Upon receipt, we immediately bumped our cuttings up into 4 inch pots in a mixture of compost and soilless mix. We kept them well watered (mums needs lots of water and nutrients). You really can’t let them dry out, so you must look out form, especially if you are growing them in pots.
For mums without patents prohibiting propagation, you want to take and root any additional cutting prior to July 1. Mums should not be pinched after that date.
After our greenhouse was cleared out (all seedlings planted out), we bumped the mums up to azalea pots (Our pots: (azalea pots, 10 x 7 1/4 inch pots) (soil is 1/2 compost and 1/2 soiless mix).
Fertilizer:
At the beginning of August we noticed that the mums were not taking off as we hoped and that they looked a little pale. We added about 3 teaspoons of slow release Osmocote fertilizer (15-9-12 OSMOCOTE PLUS 50LB 3-4 MONTH*) that we purchased from AM Leonard. We sprinkled this fertilizer on the tops of the soil surface to give them a boost for the rest of their potted production time (4 months: August, September, October, November). The results have been impressive. Next time, we will add a longer slow release fertilizer and mix it into the soil medium and compost we’re using in our pots from the start.
Note: This is a synthetic, slow release fertilizer. It is not organic. I’m hopeful that we can find a promising product that is organic and suitable for this application to replace it next season.
Watering:
We took care to make sure our pots stayed well-watered and we grew them with 50% shade cloth on our tunnel. When watering, we lift pots to make sure they are heavy and well-saturated. A simple surface watering is not enough. We water deeply at the base of the plant.
Growth Habit:
We also grew our plants close together to encourage upright growth, rather than a bushy habit. We kept the sidewalls raised on our tunnel for ventilation until the weather turned cold (lower than 55F at night). We have our greenhouse fans running 24/7. The airflow is good for pest and disease prevention, but also stronger, stalkier stems
Pests:
We kept a close eye on them for pests and I fogged the crops with the mint concentrate about once a week (always after watering) until we saw no significant signs of pests. After that, we just spot- fogged (with the Petra tools mini fogger) certain plants/areas if we saw some small colonies of thrips or aphids. Learn more here!
Flexibility
As potted plants growing in our propagation house, we have the flexibility to move plants around and re-distribute them as needed. We can easily isolate or remove plants we’re concerned about. We can also eliminate plants that are underperforming. And it is very easy to cut back and save plants for the future. They can be stored under benches or out of the way as we like.
We’ve always had trouble finishing mums here before. I’ve grown them in the ground in unheated tunnels and also in crates in unheated tunnels. Unfortunately, they were almost always frosted right as they started to flower. The area they took up in those tunnels was too great for the little income the crop produced.