Though best known for firing up fall with color, chrysanthemums are among the easiest perennials to grow in a garden-regardless of where that garden happens to be. Mums are happy in the dry heat of the Southwest or the humidity of either of the Washingtons, and many varieties can withstand winters in Minnesota or Maine.
Mums are great impersonators, too.
The chrysanthemum palette includes every color but blue, and the holding time for blossoms, even in a vase, is measured in weeks rather than days. Merely keeping a pot on your porch is to miss a great growing opportunity, because mums are the perfect perennials to let into your beds. Meet the Mums Gardeners have been enjoying mums for more than 2,000 years. By A.D. 400, these plants were the craze among Chinese gardeners. Today, most of the best kinds for North American gardens are known simply as garden mums, and are botanically classified as Dendranthea grandiflorum.