I do not have any mums, but what you described seems typical of what a lot of us are seeing. It will be interesting to see, as long as you keep cutting them back and feeding them, if they will bloom again in their normal Fall bloom slot. In northeastern OK the days certainly have seemed to be more like one would expect to see in the early part of the Fall. I am sure that your area is the same, that is what has so confused your mums.

My Tuscarora crapemyrtles are not blooming yet. They froze over Easter and I had to dig them up, cut them back and pot them up. They have put all their efforts into regrowing. I am glad they have done such a good job regenerating. No matter how long it takes for them to begin to bloom this summer, I plan on not pruning off the spent blooms to help the trees porduce more blooms. That way they should have more time to harden off their new growth enough so they can better avoid the winter kill which thin new trunks often encounter with our winters.

My double trunked chaste tree which I also had to cut back, but did not dig up and pot, has regrown. I pruned out all but the two best trunks, and they are now only 18 inches tall, but are currently in full bloom. My single trunked Chaste tree, died back half way, so I did not prune it down to the rootball a few months ago. Instead, I cut the main trunk down to about 2 feet tall. Now it is attempting to regrow, but has not begun to bloom as of yet.

I am glad that my 'Blue Satin' rose of sharon which I am training into a tree form has only yesterday produced one bloom. Instead of blooming, it has focused its efforts into growing taller, and now has nearly doubled in height.

The Biggest benefit this weather has cause for me is to extend the life of my pansies. In drier years with less daily clouds, they would have dried up weeks ago. Now instead, they are still going strong. I have some begonias which I got to replace them, but it seems a shame to give up on the pansies, when they seem to be still doing so well.

Rita,

I do not have mums. My heavy, slow-draining clay just kills them. I agree with Katrina that the odd blooming period is undoubtedly a result of the crazy weather which has been unseasonably cool and wet and might have fooled your plants into thinking that autumn has arrived.

You PROBABLY will have fewer flowers in the fall. You might try to mitigate that by feeding the plants a Super Bloom or Bloom Booster type fertilizer after you cut them back. We still have a lot of frost-free growing season left (well, unless it snows in August or something....and would that really surprise us if it happened this year?) and your plants will have a lot of time to regrow and set new buds.

Hi Katrina,

It sounds like your plants are making an excellent recovery from the severe freeze damage.

I know you are proabably missing their blooms, but it is a good thing that they are making so much new growth. Our trees and shrubs are growing very quickly in all this moisture and I do hope all the new growth has a chance to harden off and toughen up before our first fall freeze.

In our garden, the weather has greatly extended the life of the nasturtiums that I always plant in March/April for April/May blooms. Usually I yank them out and replace them with zinnias in early June, but they are going strong, still look very good and continue to open new blossoms constantly. I am glad we are able to enjoy them a bit longer as the hummers really like them too.

Dawn

We still have a lot of frost-free growing season left (well, unless it snows in August or something....and would that really surprise us if it happened this year?)

LMBO!!! No, that wouldn't surprise me!!

Katrina, we didn't plant pansies this year. *sigh* But the ones I had last year did VERY well in the heat - go figure. This year, I'd have probably killed them already. :) I'd love to see a picture of your Rose of Sharon.

Is it time for crepe myrtles to bloom? It seems like we're still a few weeks away from bloom time for mine, which are getting big and bushy. I didn't suffer any freeze damage on mine, though.

Mums - I have them purely by accident. I left two pots tipped on their sides at the base of my clematis vines out front 3 years ago. The next year, they started growing before I could dispose of the pots with mums in them, so I decided to leave them there and see what they did. Well, they spilled out of the pots and took root, and have been growing there ever since. I'll have to check to see if they have buds. I never pinch them like you're supposed to, but I always get tons of blooms. They are the reddish brown and dark red colors.

My new solidago is blooming! That's weird, huh? And, it seems that my aster tartaricus 'Jindai' is sending up bloom stalks. These are definitely fall bloomers. Yikes! My plants are in a state of total confusion!

By the way, I am getting bulbils on my Lilium lancifolium 'Flore Pleno'. It is a double flowering tiger with the recurved petals, and it's gorgeous. If anyone wants to try growing them from the bulbils, I'll share. This is an odd little lily, but a beautiful one. The foliage grows like an Asiatic. It grows quite easily in our climate. It's an old fashioned bloomer, so some of you may already have it.

My begonia grandis evansiana (hardy begonia) is getting ready to bloom - it's a fall bloomer, too. The cool thing about this plant is that it also produces bulbils, and plants grow easily from those that drop on the ground. I can share bulbils of this as well.

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: Lilium lancifolium 'Flore Pleno'

My mums and my aster have already bloomed. The mums always bloom early. I whacked all of them last weekend, in hopes they would come back for fall.

It's not too unusual for me, my mums frequently try to bloom this time of year.

I need to cut them back again, I already did it once around Memorial Day. Generally this time of year I forget to go whack them again and then I end up with scraggly mums in the fall!

Lisa

Mine are just opening up nicely, so I'm going to let them go ahead and bloom. I may not get as spectacular a display in the fall, but they are so gorgeous right now!

:)