Pot Mums for Easter

This is my daughter sitting amongst the Pot Chrysanthemums at our store a couple years back.  Pot Mums are a popular plant for Easter decorating.  They are right up there with Lily's, Tulips, Daffodils, Hyacinths, and Azaleas for folks who enjoy having a little bit of early Springtime in their homes for the Easter holiday.

This season I am again growing Mums for Easter but I cut back my order considerably.  This year, Easter falls on April 20, which is very late.  By that time, a lot of people are already thinking about their gardens and will probably have less interest in pretty but not hardy house plants.  That's right, these Pot Mums are not the same as the Garden Mums that a prolific from late August through October in our area.  Pot Mums are essentially a very nice looking plant but don't expect them to last all season and there's no chance of them coming back next year.

These Pot Mums were shipped in from Florida from cuttings taken by +Aris Horticultre, Inc..  They come from their GreenLeaf plants division.  They were delivered pretty early in the morning which is a good thing because I know they haven't been riding around in a cold UPS truck all day.

I prepare the soil by mixing our standard potting mix with leftover mum mix from last fall.  The mum mix is a bark based soil and contains Osmocote which is a  slow-release fertilizer.  I also get out the 8" and 6" containers which the majority of the Pot Mums will be planted in. 

Opening the first package reveals the Pot Mums and they look to be in pretty good condition for being stuffed in a box for a couple days.  They are sorted by plant variety with 50 rooted cuttings per bag.

I pull out the first bag and it's the Olympia variety.  This is a popular white Pot Mum that sells especially well for the Easter holiday.  The churches that order from us for their Easter mass prefer white because it's the most pure of all colors.

This is what a single rooted Pot Mum cutting looks like. 

In a 6" container I plant four mums per pot.  I angle them outwards slightly so when they grow they will fill out the container out quite nicely.

An 8" container has five mums per pot, with four on the edge and one in the center.  I plant considerably fewer 8" pots then 6".  The 8" obviously have a higher price point because there are more plants and the container is larger.

After planting all 900 mums I have filled an entire greenhouse bench and then some.  Right after planting them they do look a bit ragged but they will become established in their new home before you know it.

I give them all a good drink and also prepare additional fertilizer.  When mums are first becoming established they like to be fed quite heavily.  This helps them during their vegetative state, that is when they are spending their energy making roots, stems, and leaves and before they make buds.

In fact, to prevent the Pot Mums from making buds right away, I have to trick them into thinking the days are longer than they actually are.  Mums think it is time to make buds and flowers when days are short like they are in the winter (the same holds true for fall Garden Mums, that is why under natural light conditions they don't start flowering until late August).  Of course I don't want that to happen right now because I want to sell them in late April, and once they have flowered, that's it.  Above the bench where the mums are I have 2 sets of fluorescent bulbs hooked up to a timer.  I have the timer set to go on every night at 10 pm and shut off at 2 am.  This will interrupt their night cycle and make them continue using their energy for vegetative growth.  This way I can get big, bushy plants before they start to devote their energy to flowers. 

On February 19 I plan on shutting the lights off.  Since these are considered "8-week" Pot Mums, they will take approximately 8 weeks to make their flowers.  This will put me at the Wednesday before Easter, which is just when I want to start retailing them.