How to Care for Mums in Pots: 5 Must-Know Tips

These tips on how to care for mums in pots will help you keep your fall flowers going as long as possible.

In autumn, few container plants can rival the petal-packed show of mums. But knowing how to care for mums in pots ensures you'll get to enjoy their colorful flowers as long as possible. These tips will help you successfully care for potted mums so they'll keep blooming all season long.

Even though potted mums are available for purchase well before fall begins, these plants do best in cooler temperatures. To help your mums in pots last longer, don't set them out when the temperature is still warm, or the flowers will fade in a few weeks. Waiting to buy your mums until it's cooler will help them last longer, so you can enjoy their beautiful blooms for up to eight weeks before frost.

Help your potted mums last as long as they can with this list of simple tips.

Success starts with choosing the best chrysanthemums for your fall containers. Although just about every supermarket and big box store will offer mums during the fall, it pays to shop carefully. These plants often get under or overwatered, which stresses them, so they won't perform as well for you.

For best results, ask when a store is getting a new shipment in and go first thing that day to get the cream of the crop. Or visit your local garden center or nursery, which will often have a more extensive selection, and the plants will usually be better cared for and healthier.

Wherever you shop, avoid buying a wilted plant and look for ones with more closed buds than open flowers. You'll get more bloom time out of these mums, and they'll likely handle repotting better.

Take a glance at the plant's label to check the type of mum and its bloom time. You may find both florist mums and garden mums available for fall decorating.

Florist Mums: If you're looking to decorate your front porch for just a few weeks before the frost hits, then buy florist mums (also known as cutting mums). These types of mums are used as short-term bedding plants that won't survive winter outside, no matter how you protect your plants from cold weather. Florist mums won't carry on once the blooms die or frost arrives.

Garden Mums: If you want a more permanent perennial, choose a garden mum (hardy mums). These perennials can survive a light fall frost better than florist types. After enjoying hardy mums in pots, you can plant them in your garden to keep them going from year to year. However, it's best to overwinter them in their pot in a protected place like an unheated garage, then plant them in spring after the last frost date in your region to allow their roots to get established in the garden.

Always repot a purchased potted mum plant when you get it home. They're usually root-bound, meaning the roots take up most of the pot. This makes it challenging for the roots to find enough water and air. Replant the mums in a container larger than they came in so the roots can spread out. Gently loosen tangled roots before repotting to encourage them to grow outward again.

These plants do best in well-drained soil, so use a good-quality potting mix that doesn't stay soggy after watering. If you are keeping your mums in pots for a single season, you can mix them with other plants in a large container. If you want to try overwintering your potted mums, plant them by themselves in a container that's easy to move indoors when freezing temperatures arrive.

Mums need at least six hours of sunlight each day. If you live in a warmer gardening zone, place your potted mums in a shaded area to prevent the sun from scorching the plants. And if your daytime temperatures are still getting up into the 80s and beyond, protect your plants from the harsh afternoon sun as much as you can to help the flowers last longer.

Mums in pots need a consistent supply of water, so whenever the soil feels dry on the surface, add water until it drains out the bottom. Never let your mums wilt, which can damage the flowers. If you notice that the bottom leaves look limp or start to turn brown, water more often. When watering your mums, try not to splash the foliage to avoid plant diseases.

Before freezing weather arrives, give the potted mums you hope to overwinter a bit of liquid fertilizer higher in phosphorus to stimulate root growth. Then, once the first hard frost hits, move your plants inside or into an unheated garage. Pinch off dead blooms to clean up the plant, but leave branches intact; mums have a better chance of surviving if you wait until spring to cut back old stems.

Add up to 4 inches of straw or shredded hardwood mulch on top of the soil, filling in around the entire plant and spreading well between branches. Then, cover the pot with burlap or an old sheet. Check the soil once in a while and water lightly if it feels very dry. As soon as spring weather warms up, pull away mulch to allow new shoots to pop up. Water well and move your mums in pots outside into the sunshine.