Care is easy. Keep your Mums well-watered. If you let your Mum wilt once or twice it will forgive you and perk right back up. If you let your Mum really dry out and wilt down three or four times it may not actually, die but it will look so bad you will wish it were dead!

Add in an occasional meal of your favorite fertilizer and there is only one other important key to success. That job is “dead heading” or clipping off the individual blooms as they pass their peak and begin to brown. This is really important because when you clip the flowers off you encourage new growth and a new set of flowers. If you have the small flowered type like pictured cut off the spent blooms about two inches below the flower. You can look and decide where you want the new growth to begin to grow and set buds. You can also wait until later and cut back your Mum all at once.

Growing Hint: The plant sets buds naturally outside as long as the night time hours of darkness are longer than the days. Eventually your Mum will have given its all. You can then cut It way back, plant it in the ground and it will grow again or you can gracefully throw it away without guilt and buy another.