Chryanthemums: How to Grow Year-Round in mild-winter climates

Question from Edward:
How long will chrysanthemums last in Southern California I just planted them

Answer from Pat:
Chrysanthemums will live indefinitely in Southern California if you give them good care and deep fertile, well-drained soil, with regular water and full sun. They also need to be staked except for the compact cushion varieties. When grown this way they will only bloom in fall but will be in bloom for one or two months. Also you really should plant the garden varieties and not those which are designed for forcing under lights. Unfortunately all the chrysanthemums one buys in pots have been forced by lights and darkness to make them bloom at will year round. (Same as they do for poinsettias.) But when you grow a chrysanthemum in the ground, you really should begin with a garden variety, plant in spring, feed and pinch all summer, then let them bloom as nature intended in fall. Garden varieties come in various heights and with different bloom shapes and sizes and colors. There are even varieties especially developed in Japan for cascades. There used to be a special chrysanthemum nursery called Sunnyside Chrysanthemums in Altadena that grew the most fantastic cascades you just about ever saw except in an eastern greenhouse like those at Longwood Gardens, where they are still grown every year.

When I state that chrysanthemums will grow indefinitely I am referring to the old-fashioned way of growing them that all gardeners knew in the 1930’s, 1940’s, and 1950’s when many gardeners grew them. We also had many Japanese gardeners in those days and they knew all about chrysanthemums and how to grow them so they were in almost every garden. Additionally, there was so much water that the Metropolitan Water District was urging folks to use it. Chrysanthemums need well-drained beds of soil and constant moisture.

I had a neighbor in the 1960’s who grew a huge bed full of chrysanthemums every year. They were the tall variety, not the cushion type of mums. Hers were all a kind of deep gold, almost orange color and they grew 3 to 4-feet tall. She had a huge bed of them street-side so everyone who passed by enjoyed them in October and November when they bloomed. This neighbor picked many to use as long-stemmed cut flowers but there were always loads left in the bed. After the blooms were partially spent, she cut off the dead ones and that made them bloom a little longer. Then after those blooms died, she cut back the plants almost down to the ground. During the fall and winter, these plants re-sprouted with fresh growth. If she was very busy in spring she would just let them grow again on the same roots and fertilize and take care of them as usual. You can do that but it’s not the correct way. Her usual way, however, was to do the job right. Every year in spring she would take fresh cuttings in late February or early March and dip them in a rooting compound and plant them in flats. While these got going she pulled up all the old plants and composted their remains or threw them away. While her cuttings were growing she would then dig up the emptly bed and mix a bag or two of compost into the bed and plenty of fertilizer or manure. Then once the cuttings had begun to grow and had sprouted enough roots, she would plant these fresh plants straight back into the bed. (Some other gardeners were so fussy they planted their cuttings out of the flat into pots first and then when roots filled the pots, from pots into the bed.) March is the best time to take soft cuttings in Southern California. They root quickly in a flat. See the March chapter in my book for more instructions on taking and growing softwood cuttings.