The Garden Club


September 18, 2003					www.CarrollGardens.com
A Few Words About Hurricane Isabel					Featured Items
For the safety of our employees and our customers, we expect to close our Garden Center as well as our eCommerce and mail order offices in Westminster, Maryland on Friday due to the Hurricane approaching the East Coast. We may also close early on Thursday. We expect normal operations on Saturday. Please tune into the Garden Club Radio Show on WCBM (680 on your AM radio dial if you are in the Maryland area, or online via WCBM's website) starting at 7:00 Saturday morning for updated information. If trees are damaged during the hurricane, dress the wound with NuBark™ and nothing else. The black tar-like aerosol sprays or paints do more harm than good. NuBark contains lanolin, which has been scientifically shown to encourage healing and bark rejuvenation.					NuBark™ Natural Pruning Paste 20-40% OFF Selected Roses Single Apricot Chrysanthemum Geranium Sampler Garden Collection
"Hints for Successful Chrysanthemum Culture"
Question Every year I plant lots of Chrysanthemums. Some come back but most are dead in the spring. At my grandmother’s farmhouse, we always had mums that lived for years and years. What am I doing wrong? Answer I have taken a press release from Yoder Brothers (the largest mum grower in the United States) and re-worked it below. I think you’ll find some useful cultural suggestions there. However, there is one important point, besides cultural suggestions, to be made. Part of the problem is that many modern-bred mums are not as hardy as those that survived in your grandmother’s garden. I’ll bet the mums in your grandmother’s garden were significantly taller than the mums you are buying in the garden center. Modern mums have been bred to be compact mounds. With this breeding the number and length of basal shoots has also been reduced. The fewer the shoots and the closer they are to the crown, the less chance for survival until next year. That is why modern garden mums don’t increase into huge patches the way old-fashioned mums did. (Fifty years ago you could buy a single garden mum and over 3 years you could divide it into enough plants to line the entire driveway of a suburban house. Now we consider ourselves lucky if the mum survives for 3 years and increases at all). So when selecting mums look for varieties that have little green shoots coming up around the edges of the pots. Those shoots are the beginnings of next year’s mums. There has been no reliable scientific testing variety by variety for the durability of garden mums. However, three that I know to be amongst the most reliable are: Single Apricot, Crown Jewel and Red Crown Jewel.
Planting Whenever possible, look to buy and plant garden mums in the spring. Spring-planted garden mums over-winter better than those planted in fall, because of their better establishment in the garden. Plant mums in a sunny location (at least a half-day of sun). Plant in fertile, well-drained soil. Soils can be improved by adding compost. Chesapeake Blue Crab Compost is the compost of choice. Flowering plants purchased in the fall should be removed from their pots and replanted in the ground at least six weeks ahead of the first hard freeze. Be sure to pull apart the roots around the edges of the soil mass with your fingers. Plants displayed in their pots on a porch, deck or patio should be similarly removed and planted before they are completely spent. Space garden mums in flower in the fall based on plant size. Young garden mums planted in the spring should be spaced 18 to 24 inches apart. Garden mums are often planted to be perennial in hardiness zones 5 and 6. However, temperature is not the only factor in over-wintering success. If plants remain wet over the winter, the crowns will rot. Therefore, the planting area must be well drained. Conversely, if the area is too dry or windy, plants will dry out and die from lack of moisture. (See below) Watering Always thoroughly water-in any freshly planted garden mums. Rainfall in many areas is sufficient to keep you garden mums growing well. During dry spells, water as needed to keep plants from wilting. The soil must be kept moist as fall approaches. With the coming of fall, we all slowly pay less attention to our garden. However, September and even early October can be a very dry period. Keep newly planted garden mums from drying out until the ground freezes. Fertilizing Garden mums planted outdoors in the fall do not need any fertilizer until they begin to grow the following spring. During the growing season, top dress with a handful or two of Flower-Tone® or fertileGRO. Repeat monthly until August. Liquid SeaMate™ may be used as an addition or substitute. Pinching To encourage branching and development of compact bushy plants, it is very important to pinch back your garden mums in the spring as soon as the new growth is 4-6 inches tall. Use your thumbnail and index finger to remove or “pinch” about half of the new growth at the top of each and every shoot. Repeat this procedure through the summer whenever new shoots are 3-5 inches long. In northern states, stop pinching around July 10^th to 15^th. In Southern states, stop pinching around July 20^th to August 1^st. Research in Germany has found garden mums do better if stems are not cut back before over-wintering. It is okay to remove the spent blossoms, but wait to remove the stems until the following spring’s garden cleanup. The stems catch leaves and snow that serves as natural cover. Usually these old stems provide sufficient protection. In really cold, exposed windy sites, a supplemental covering of evergreen boughs may be needed. Never use shredded hardwood mulch close to the crowns of the plants. It remains too wet in the early spring, causing the new shoots to rot. In the spring you can remove the old stems and the accumulated leaves. To protect tender new growth from hard, late-season frosts, do not clean up too early. Occasionally a protective cover such as “floating row cover” may need to be used during a late severe cold period. In early spring, freezing/thawing can result in plant heaving and subsequent loss of the exposed plant roots and crowns. If heaving is noticed in the spring, plants should be pushed down or have soil added to cover exposed roots.
"Fall Favorites" Preview
Fall is an excellent time for planting a number of woody plants and perennials. In this newly added section of our website, we list 15 of our favorite plants that are especially suited to fall planting. View our "Fall Favorites"					Dwarf Burning Bush

The Garden Club Radio Show
Every Saturday morning from 7:00 am to 9:00 am (Eastern time) you can listen to the highly acclaimed Garden Club Radio Show online through WCBM's website. Click here for more information about the radio show, including how to listen online. If you live in or will be traveling in the Maryland or Washington DC area, you can also listen to the show by tuning your radio to 680 AM. Any local listeners that may be traveling out of the area can still tune in to the show online, as mentioned above. We invite you to call in with your questions at 410-922-6680 or 1-800-922-6680. Happy Gardening, Alan Summers