Mums for fall...

[BigVanVader]

Crushing it! They look great. I sold all but 5 of mine that were beyond salvage. I combined 2 or 3 of the little ones into single pots and it didn't hurt them at all. Made good profit and will do it again next year. My plug guy don't fool with pot mums, so I don't think I will either.

[Cole_Robbie]

Thanks, both of you. Here's what will be going to market tomorrow:

[MissS]

Those plants are fantastic. You ought to be quite proud of them. I bet that they will sell very well for you.

[imp]

Cole, those do look beautiful! You should do very well with them.

[Cole_Robbie]

Thank you, both. I've done ok with them at market so far. There is not a lot of flower-buying sentiment here in the fall, but on the other hand, at least I am the only one at market with flowers right now.

The last pot mum finally bloomed, Yoder Fairbanks. It is pretty, but I don't think it is worth the extra month it took to bloom, compared to the Apple Valley pot mum. Maybe ordering them both together is still a good idea, as the Apple Valley is just about done by the time the Fairbanks is blooming enough to sell.

[bower]

Oh my, the colors are gorgeous in full bloom.
The supermarket mums madness here has passed, they have Christmas stuff out already.

[GrowingCoastal]

Beautiful! Great flower choices and nice full pots.

[greenthumbomaha]

Wow you have mums this late, and vibrant too. You certainly have a beautiful presentation. Ours have mainly petered out but there is still an occasional pot that survived every few blocks.

Next year it might be cool (and $$$) that this late in the season you also offer primarily colors more in tune to Thanksgiving - the oranges /reds/golds, especially the ones with a red center. It seems more deliberate that way and makes people think about buying another round of mums for the stretch leading to Thanksgiving. You can make it a premium product and wrap the pots in red or gold foil and put a pilgrim pick in the middle. I've noticed that people are going all out to decorate for Thanksgiving whereas it was very minor in prior years.

Its just too early to put red and green out, they pushed it too soon last year. When does your market end?

- Lisa

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[Cole_Robbie]

Thanks. I am definitely learning more about "fall colors." And the pot wrapper is a great idea.

After the first freeze here, it seemed that all the remaining aphids and whiteflies moved into my greenhouse for lack of live plants to eat. I sprayed my first round of Met52 a few days ago, and everything is now dead. I had been spraying pyrethrins, but that only killed a few and then they would come back. The Met52 gives them a disease that spreads among the population, and they all die. It's like the Aphid Apocalypse in the greenhouse. The stuff is pricey, but I am always impressed at its effectiveness, all while being non-toxic to humans. I know pyrethrins have OMRI approved organic status, but I'm not sure that means that they are without hazard to the worker doing the spraying.

[Cole_Robbie]

Mum sales have finally tapered off at market. Our crowd of customers has dwindled with the colder fall weather arriving, but my observations thusfar are that it is just difficult to sell flowers in November. If I do mums next year, I will shoot for Sep-Oct sales, and try to be done by the first November market.

[Cole_Robbie]

I apparently waited too long again to order mum cuttings, as I cannot find them anywhere. If anyone knows someplace that is still shipping them this late, I am open to suggestions.

[clkeiper]

usually those are planted up in June aren't they? I start seeing them for sale at the end of August around here.

[Cole_Robbie]

Yeah, I was 2-3 weeks earlier than last year, but still way too late. I have talked to several places who told me I missed their last shipment by just a few days, one place I missed the last ones by a few hours. It's looking like no mums for me this year.

[imp]

I know vry little about mums, but a few questions for you. Can you keep mums year to year and take your own cuttings or would that be a no or too much trouble/space requirements?


Can mums be started easily from seed?

[Cole_Robbie]

Overwintering is certainly possible, Imp, even in my climate. Truth is, though, almost all mums die here in the winter, because they are not planted until the fall. But no one will buy a plant that is not blooming, so no one buys them in the early summer when they really should be planted out to have their best chance of making it through the winter. I didn't try to overwinter mine from last year, because I got thrips and whiteflies so bad that I was concerned about contracting a virus from them, which would then be propagated with cuttings from that plant. And I don't think mums propagate from seed, just cuttings. Several of them are patented varieties, meaning that rooting a cutting is technically illegal if you don't pay the patent holder a small fee for each cutting. No one is going to put you in jail for that crime, but if you were to sell a lot of them, you could be held civilly liable for three times the profit you made.