When Do Chrysanthemums Bloom: Earlies, Lates, and Mid-Season

01/21/25

10 Minutes Read

Written By Johnsons Team

When Do Chrysanthemums Bloom: Earlies, Lates, and Mid-Season

Chrysanthemum plants bloom naturally from mid-August to mid-January but can be divided into three categories based on their flowering time: Earlies: Mid-August to mid-September Lates: Mid-October to Mid-January Mid-season: Those that flower in between But how exactly do these flower plants differ? Well, despite all being chrysanthemums, they have individual needs and growing conditions that impact their ability to produce healthy, bounteous blooms. If you’re looking to create dazzling arrangements in your outside space, you should first understand the different chrysanthemum flowering times.

Early Chrysanthemum Flowering Time

Earlies bloom outdoors in August and September in the open ground and can be planted out in the garden from April.

Growing early chrysanthemums

Before planting your earlies, we recommend applying our chrysanthemum plant food or another good general fertiliser and raking it in. Plant your earlies firmly about 60cm/2in apart. You can plant your flowers closer if you want blooms for cutting, but you can also plant them further apart if you need to fill a large area.

Insert a cane, tie the stem to it and water in. Feed every two to three weeks until August, when the buds will be starting to form. If you give too much feed, your plant will grow larger but softer, which can put it at risk of developing diseases.

Most cultivars can be stopped about the first week of May or when they are about 15cm/6in tall. If they have formed premature buds, it is best to cut them back to at least half their height. This will encourage new shoots to grow from lower down without buds. Four or five of the resulting side shoots should be retained. For blooms, one bud should be allowed to develop on the top of each side shoot, and other buds should be removed as they appear. For sprays, however, all buds should be allowed to develop.

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Late Chrysanthemum Flowering Time

If you’re growing your flowers late and are wondering, ‘When do chrysanthemums bloom?’ you’re likely to find that they flower between mid-October and mid-January. Lates are normally grown in pots so that they can be more easily brought in to flower in a greenhouse, free from frost.

Growing late chrysanthemums

Late-flowering chrysanthemums should be moved to the greenhouse to flower between November and December.

On arrival, they can be treated the same as garden ones, but in early May, they should be put into 13cm/5in pots. By the time June comes around, they should be potted into their final pots—a 20cm/8in or 23cm/9in pot with a supportive cane suitable for the variety's final height.

Then, they can be stood outside. If you are unsure whether they are ready to pot on, turn the pot upside down and tap the plant out, making sure to stop it from falling. If the root covers the outside of the soil, then it is ready. If not, put it back in the existing pot and leave it for around another week. At the beginning of June, the top 2.5cm/1in of the stem should be removed—this is called pinching or stopping.

If you want blooms, four side shoots should be retained, and only one bud at the top of each stem should be allowed to develop. For sprays, you simply let all the buds develop. The plants should be fed every two to three weeks until early September, when the buds start to form.

When buds begin to show colour around the end of September, move them back into the frost-free greenhouse. Give plenty of ventilation to keep the humidity down and prevent the damping of the petals.

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Shop Chrysanthemums at Johnsons

What chrysanthemum flowering time works best for you and your displays? Regardless of whether you’re keen to grow early blooms or would prefer to wait those extra couple of months, Johnsons has everything you need to enjoy stunning arrangements year-round.

Shop our gardening essentials today and prepare to create mesmerising displays across your garden and throughout the home when you grow chrysanthemums with Johnsons.