It's Time to Think Garden Mums

This week, we're starting the 2026 chrysanthemum discussion, which will continue through the summer.

PROBLEM: Weather across much of North America is warming up (or should soon) and garden mum inputs are starting to land on loading docks. It’s time to kick off the mum season with some reminders and resources for you and your production team to help you fill the proverbial toolbox. We get many of the same core questions during just about every mum season, so each year we try to share some tips and tricks in the Ball Seed Blog around this time.

NICK’S TIP: This week let’s take a high-level look at the early stages of mum production. We will no doubt go much deeper into the crop as things progress this summer. We'll also throw in a heads up on crown budding for those of you who want to think ahead.

Propagation

Interestingly, lots of new mum growers want to try their hand at rooting their own cuttings. While mums are not the toughest crop to propagate, there are a few things that you absolutely need to get right if you want to do this yourself rather than purchase rooted liners.

Timing: In North America, most mum liners should be planted in the next few weeks to be ready for sale September through October. Since rooting takes approximately three weeks (occasionally four for less-experienced propagators), unrooted cuttings need to be stuck in early to mid May. Around week 26, you could possibly direct-stick a smaller container program and finish on time. However, by now, even well-rooted liners or larger inputs like 50-cells going into larger container programs would need to be pushed very hard to get an appropriate amount of size on them before flower initiation occurs.

Facilities: Successfully rooting mums requires an appropriate propagation area. Rooting mums in a Quonset-style house with minimal environmental control and no overhead mist emitters isn’t impossible, but it will likely be difficult for inexperienced propagators. The ability to provide root-zone heat, shade in early stages of propagation, and the capacity to keep relative humidity high while minimizing excess moisture accumulating in media and on foliage are all key factors to rooting high-quality mums.

Premature Budding

A LOT of growers encountered premature budding (also known as “crown budding”) in 2025. Old-school growers often defaulted to ethephon (Florel/Collate) sprays to overcome this, and newer growers were caught off guard and didn’t know what to do when they started to see buds on their 5-in.-tall mums. There are a few things you can do to overcome this, but here are a few key take-homes if you aren’t sure what to do.

Don’t pinch them. We do this frequently with other crops to try to “reset” them, but it is not necessary for mums. Some folks also take the time to disbud each plant, but this is really just a drain on you and your team’s time.

Avoid use of ethephon (Florel/Collate) if possible. Many modern varieties are quite sensitive to ethephon, and while your plants may branch a bit more vigorously after an effective treatment, these applications lead to smaller plants at finish. If liners are very well-rooted when you apply it and the crop gets pushed hard with fertilizer after ethephon treatment(s), the risk of small plants is much lower. However ...

... If you just push hard with fertilizer at the first sign of crown budding, you can avoid pinching, disbudding and ethephon applications altogether. Apply an ammonia-based fertilizer like a 20-10-20 (or even a triple-20 once or twice) at 300+ ppm N a few times in a row and new axillary shoots will push out from beneath the crown buds and cover them up entirely. This is so much easier, but you really need to keep the pressure on with fertilizer until you start to see results.