Pinching Mums

One of the most beautiful fall blooming flowers is the chrysanthemum with it’s beautiful blooms that come in a variety of colors. To get those beautiful full mums you will need to do a little bit of maintenance work throughout the summer growing season. Mums need to be pinched or pruned back several times so instead of getting several tall branches with flowers you get a compact plant that has multiple flowers per stem. In reality we should have started pinching mums from when they first started growing however you can still pinch mums back from now till about the fourth of July without causing a loss of bloom. As mums put on about two to four inches of growth we should go in with scissors or garden shears and trim those mums back to encourage the secondary buds to put on new growth and giving you that bushy, compact plant at the end of the season with lots of blooms all over the plant. For more information on pinching back mums and to watch several techniques to do it check out this video: https://kansashealthyyards.org/component/allvideoshare/video/how-to-grow-big-bushy-annuals?Itemid=101

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Have questions? Contact our office where our Horticulture Extension Agent will assist you with questions.

Phone: (316) 321-9660

Email: callae@ksu.edu