{"id":3844,"date":"2022-11-28T07:44:17","date_gmt":"2022-11-28T15:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=3844"},"modified":"2022-11-28T07:44:17","modified_gmt":"2022-11-28T15:44:17","slug":"mums-the-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/mums-the-word\/","title":{"rendered":"Mums the Word"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mums--Old<\/a>Chrysanthemums are not fragrant\u2014at least not to my nose.\u00a0 In fact, an extract of chrysanthemum flowers, pyrethrin, is used as an insecticide, and insecticides almost never have a pleasant odor.<\/p>\n

I generally prefer sweet smelling flowers, but I love chrysanthemums\u2014a love that comes naturally.\u00a0 My mother was wild about them, especially the giant \u201cfootball\u201d mums and the slightly exotic spider mums.\u00a0 We always had pots of them around in the fall, inside and outside the house.\u00a0 I do the same now.\u00a0 Like my mother before me, I find that the plants are a balm to my thrifty soul, because they are both cheap and lovely.\u00a0 I also grow the perennial \u201cgarden\u201d mums in my flowerbeds.\u00a0 They are among the last plants to go to sleep at the end of the growing season, and I cut stems for indoor arrangements through October and sometimes into November.\u00a0 Mums, whether homegrown or store bought, have the added advantage of outlasting most other cut flowers.<\/p>\n

When you think about mums\u2019 advantages, it makes the lack of alluring scent easier to bear.<\/p>\n

I was intrigued recently by an article in one of the English gardening magazines about a woman in Cornwall who grows a vast array of mums.\u00a0 Sometimes she buys the plants from vendors, but she also propagates mums from cut stems that arrive in flower arrangements.\u00a0 When I read this, a light bulb clicked on in my brain.\u00a0 Florists\u2019 mums sometimes come in shapes and colors that are not readily available to home gardeners.\u00a0 Propagating from stems is one way of adding some unusual varieties to the garden with little effort and even less expense.\u00a0 I decided to try it.<\/p>\n

Right now a bouquet of mums from the supermarket is sitting in an old Pyrex measuring cup on my kitchen counter waiting to play a starring role in the middle of the Thanksgiving table.\u00a0 The blooms are various autumnal shades of russet, gold and dark red, with flowers in a mix of sizes and configurations.\u00a0 In keeping with the norm for supermarket flowers, the only information on the label is the price of the bouquet\u2014no varietal names.<\/p>\n

I figure there will almost certainly be some stems that are too short for the arrangement. I\u2019ll set them aside, remove the leaves, and root them in small pots.\u00a0 They will most likely need bright indirect light, so I will find a space for them in my kitchen, dining room or home office, where I can keep an eye on them.\u00a0 The magazine article doesn\u2019t say anything about rooting hormone, and I don\u2019t happen to have any on hand, so I\u2019ll do without.\u00a0 If I think of it, I\u2019ll make some willow water from the branches of the little willow in the front yard and water the cuttings with it.\u00a0 I have found though, that plants with natural rooting propensity, like tradescantia, coleus and orchid cactus, don\u2019t need any help at all.\u00a0 I have been absentminded and more than a bit disorganized since birth, so the rooting trait is a boon to my gardening efforts.<\/p>\n

My fall garden tends to lack interest once the aster tsunami has passed.\u00a0 A few carefully cultivated chrysanthemum plants with interesting flower shapes and colors might close out the season on a higher and more floriferous note.\u00a0 Next fall, it will be quite satisfying to see my cutting-grown chrysanthemums come full circle when I cut stems for indoor arrangements.<\/p>\n

In my day-to-day life, I have become more and more wedded to the idea of adapting and reusing what I already have on hand. I gather greens from the garden to fill out bouquets and decorate for the holidays.\u00a0 Before I buy new decorative items, I check all the storage boxes for old ones that are waiting for new opportunities to shine.\u00a0 Propagating a few chrysanthemum cuttings is another easy way of pursuing sustainability.<\/p>\n

In this season of rampant consumerism, it is my own small way of getting back to basics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chrysanthemums are not fragrant\u2014at least not to my nose.\u00a0 In fact, an extract of chrysanthemum flowers, pyrethrin, is used as an insecticide, and insecticides almost never have a pleasant odor. I generally prefer sweet smelling flowers, but I love chrysanthemums\u2014a love that comes naturally.\u00a0 My mother was wild about them, especially the giant \u201cfootball\u201d mums … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,5],"tags":[29,423,1566,2802,977,2596,2800,2801],"class_list":["post-3844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-budget-gardening","tag-chrysanthemums","tag-cut-flowers","tag-easy-plants","tag-fall-garden","tag-mums","tag-plant-propagation","tag-stem-cuttings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3844"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3846,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3844\/revisions\/3846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}