Frequently, a gardener asks, “How shall I care for my chrysanthemums so they will live through the winter ?”
If plants are old, spindly, and diseased, why save them? It is better to start with fresh, healthy nursery plants bought from specialists whose business is raising and selling the finest varieties.
To be worth saving, plants should be clean, vigorous, free of disease, and capable of producing high-quality flowers in desired colors. Such plants repay an effort made to save them from the rigors of winter.
Anyone, or all, of several reasons may cause chrysanthemums to fail to live year after year.
Chief among these are extreme cold, poor drainage, the heaving of soil, and weakness and disease.
Winter Protection For Chrysanthemums
Chrysanthemums are shallow-rooted. Therefore, where very low temperatures are common, they may perish from the cold.
In such regions, it is advisable to protect them with winter mulch. After the ground is frozen, but before the extreme cold, a 3 to 4-inch mulch of hay, straw, or similar material should be placed around the plants.
Soggy soil that holds water around roots and crowns is almost certain to cause plant death. Fortunately, chrysanthemums already growing in such a location may be saved if they are dug up after their tops have been killed by frost and carried over in a cold frame.
More hazardous but successful in some instances is setting such clumps in a sheltered location on top of the soil or on top of a compost heap, mulching around them with soil, and covering them with straw or hay.
Using Mulch
As insurance against winter’s cold, mulch is also valuable as protection for chrysanthemums already growing in well-drained soil.
A 1- to 3-inch mulch of sand has been used with some success, as has peat moss, which is more expensive but very neat-looking. In milder parts of the country, evergreen boughs, placed around and not over the crowns of plants, are thought to be helpful.
Alternative Methods of Winter Protection
Some have suggested covering plants with bushel baskets or wooden crates in areas subject to alternate freezing and thawing.
In our area, where temperature changes are extreme and sudden, such covers have not furnished satisfactory protection. Of the plants thus covered, a few survived but were greatly weakened, and the majority died.
Plants often live only one season because they lack vitality. They may have been inherently weak or may have been weakened by insects, disease, improper care, or little or no food and water.
If such plants do not respond to treatment, they should be pulled out and burned. If carried over, changing their location in the garden might be advisable.
Care of Chrysanthemums in The Cold Frame
The cold frame is preferred above all other methods of protecting chrysanthemums through the winter.
After the tops are killed by frost, they are cut off, and labels are tied to the short stubs left above ground.
Then, the clumps are dug, with as much soil around their roots as possible, and planted in holes previously prepared in the cold frame or set close together on top of the soil in the frame and covered with mulch to protect any exposed roots.
Extra cover (mats, sacks, or an old carpet) may be put over the sashes during very cold weather.
Clumps should be watered well before they are dug up, after setting in the cold frame, and any time during a mild spell when the soil dries out.
In early spring, sashes are opened slightly during warm, sunny hours to ventilate the plants. They are taken out of the frame in late April or early May, divided, and set in the garden.
“What shall I do with new shoots or suckers around flowering chrysanthemum plants? Shall I pull them out?” asks the gardener.
“Rejoice!” reply the experts, “and cherish each new shoot, for it will make a new plant when set out separately next spring.”
Further, we have found that varieties that send out underground shoots or stolons are much more likely to live over than those that do not.
Propagation and Planning For Future Growth
Making cuttings late in the season to carry over for the next year is a recent suggestion.
This may be a good idea for those who live where no severe winter injury occurs, but for much of the country, especially the East and North, such a practice is a gamble, according to the experts.
These are a few suggestions. The best means of carrying chrysanthemums safely through the winter are learned by experience and differ with each locality.
Then, because nature is so infinitely various, all methods may prove helpful in some years, and all, or almost all, fail in other years.
44659 by Mary C. Seckman