Caring for fall mums and pumpkins in Utah

Garden mums sold in the fall are usually packed into their pots with a lot of roots and not much soil, so they dry out quickly. Low humidity, sun, and wind make that happen even faster here.

• Check every day. Push a finger an inch into the soil. If it feels dry, water. On warm, sunny days a mum in full sun may need water daily.
• Water the soil, not the flowers. Pour slowly at the base until water runs out the bottom of the pot. Wet blooms and leaves overnight invite mildew.
• Water in the morning. The plant gets a full day to use it, and the leaves dry before the night cools down.
• Revive a wilted mum with a soak. If the pot has dried out completely, water can run straight past the root ball. Set the pot in a tray or bucket of water for 20 to 30 minutes so it can soak up from the bottom.
• Pinch off spent blooms. Removing brown flowers keeps the plant looking tidy.

Mums are hardy plants, and a light frost usually only nips the outer petals. A hard freeze, when temperatures drop well below 32°F for several hours, can turn open blooms brown and mushy. Watch the overnight forecast as October goes on.

• Water the day before a cold night. Moist soil holds warmth better than dry soil.
• Cover them overnight. An old bed sheet, burlap, or frost cloth draped to the ground traps heat from the soil. Avoid plastic touching the leaves, since it can transfer cold. Remove the cover in the morning.
• Tuck pots close to the house. The wall and the porch roof both hold a little heat. A covered porch is noticeably warmer than an open walkway.

An uncarved pumpkin with its stem intact can stay firm for weeks, often well past Halloween. What shortens its life is moisture, heat, bruising, and a hard freeze.

• Leave the stem alone. Lift pumpkins from the bottom, never by the stem. A broken stem is an easy entry point for rot.
• Keep them dry. After rain or sprinklers, tip water out of any dips and let the bottoms dry. Pumpkins sitting in a puddle soften from underneath.
• Check for soft spots. Once a week, press gently around the base. If one goes soft, move it off the porch so it does not stain the concrete or spread to its neighbors.
• Protect from a hard freeze. Pumpkins that freeze solid turn mushy after they thaw. On the coldest nights, cover them with the mums or bring small ones inside.

Once a pumpkin is cut open, the clock starts. In dry air a jack-o'-lantern tends to shrivel and cave in rather than mold, and most only look their best for several days to about a week.

• Carve close to Halloween. Two or three days ahead is plenty.
• Scrape the inside clean. Leftover pulp and seeds break down first.
• Keep carved pumpkins in the shade. Afternoon sun speeds up drying.
• Use LED lights instead of candles. Corn stalks, hay bales, and dry leaves catch fire easily, and battery lights do not cook the pumpkin from the inside.

If you want jack-o'-lanterns but also want the display to last into November, carve one or two of the large carving pumpkins and leave the heirloom pumpkins whole.

Every Little Porch package includes free end-of-season cleanup on the date you choose when you book. Many people keep their porch up through Halloween, and others leave it until Thanksgiving. If you would like an earlier date before the end-of-season rush, add priority early cleanup.

On cleanup day we take everything away, including the temporary hanging hardware. Pumpkins and organic materials are donated to local farms for animal feed and compost.

Ready to book? Compare packages and prices, see the packages on our home page, or go straight to booking. We serve Utah County and Salt Lake County.