Creative Ways to Decorate With Mums

Go beyond a single potted mum beside your front door. Get creative with plump pumpkins, bumpy gourds, other flowers and seasonal accents.

By: Lynn Coulter

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Photo By: National Chrysanthemum Society

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Photo By: National Chrysanthemum Society

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Photo By: Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park

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Photo By: Longwood Gardens

Photo By: Ball Horticultural Company

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Mums for a Tailgate Party

Go mad for mums and use them to dress up your porch, yard, entrance or deck. They'll bloom for weeks in shades of yellow, orange, pink, red and white. A potted mum makes a charming accent for your front door, but browse our collection for more creative ways to decorate with mums.

If you're a football fan, kick off the season with a tailgate party and place chrysanthemums on the back of your pickup. This display scores with a small sign, potted evergreens, colorful ornamental pepper and yellow mums, or you can substitute your favorite team colors. Toss in a couple of footballs and add a basket of apples and unshelled peanuts so guests can grab a snack as they arrive.

ALSO SEE: Mums 101: When To Plant and How To Grow Chrysanthemums

Hang Mums in Baskets

Choose mums with a spreading or trailing habit to show off in hanging baskets. This 'Skyfall' chrysanthemum series, from Ball Horticultural Company, has strong, flexible stems that cascade nicely. Hang them around an outdoor table or seating area or from a porch. Keep them watered; hanging flowers dry out faster in the wind and sun, but use them where drips won’t be an issue. Use sturdy baskets made of fabric, plastic or other materials, making sure your hooks and supports can handle the weight. If you opt for open-wire baskets with coco liners, look for liners with plastic sheets to slow the drainage.

Decorate With Mums and Companion Plants

Foliage plants that can survive the winter or until a killing frost make great companions for mums in raised beds. These dark purple plants are perennial heucheras, also called coral bells. The red foliage plants in the back are coleuses, hardy only in Zone 11. A taller variety edged in bright green grows at the back of the bed. Variegated ivy between the heucheras will start to trail as it grows. Choose plants that have the same basic needs for water and sun.

Float Mum Blooms

For an easy way to decorate with mums, snip the stems of fresh blooms to one inch long and float them in water. Place them in an outdoor water feature or enjoy them indoors in a pretty bowl or saucer. Cut mums will last longer — typically from a few days to a week — if you keep them out of the sun. Replace the flowers and water as needed. Experiment with blooms from a mixed bouquet from a grocery store if you want flowers in other colors and shapes; some blooms float better than others.

Border a Walkway With Mums

Line a path or walkway with large, showy mums. While some types can take partial sun, six to eight hours of sun a day usually produces more flowers. In hot regions, place your mums where they'll get some shade from the afternoon sun to help the flowers last longer. Pay attention to when each variety blooms to stagger your flower show, or enjoy a spectacular display with mums that open at the same time.

Pot Up Mums in Pumpkins

Don't have a faux pumpkin? Cut an opening in a real one and drop in a pot of blooming mums. These decorate a front door, where they're flanked by white autumn-blooming azaleas, straw bales, dried cornstalks and a "witches broom" to celebrate Halloween. Fill the top of the pumpkin with a trailing plant, sphagnum moss or dried green moss to hide the cut edges.

MORE IDEAS: 73 Front Porch Decorating Ideas for Halloween

Accent Railings and Ledges With Mums

Apartment dwellers and gardeners with above-ground decks, don't despair about decorating with mums. Extend the small ledges at the base of your railings with slide-on planter shelves so you can have a "floating" container garden. They come with stakes to help secure the plants. No ledges on your railings? Use railing clips to float your mums instead. Read the product labels to make sure the shelves or clips will fit your space and determine how much weight they can hold.

Dress Up Fences With Mums

Mums planted along a fence add vibrant color to lawns and landscapes. They need sun and consistently moist soil that drains easily, so if your soil is poor, amend it with good compost. For mums that come back every year, choose varieties that can overwinter in your region. Most garden mums (Chrysanthemum x morifolium), also called hardy mums, are perennials in USDA Garden Zones 5 to 9. Plant early, before cold weather arrives, so they have time to form strong roots.

Brighten a Porch With Mums

Welcome guests to your porch with elegant black urns planted with bold purple mums like these. Smaller pots can hold mums in seasonal colors like white, orange and lavender. The orange tones are echoed by a chair with an orange-striped pillow and a side table holding black-eyed Susans and pumpkins. A glowing lantern and votive candles invite lounging into the evening.

Make a Focal Point With Mums

Create a focal point in your garden with flowers surrounded by mums in mixed colors. These chrysanthemums are planted in rustic baskets that contrast nicely with the purple lobelias in a formal white urn. Give your focal point a backdrop of shrubs that change colors in autumn or use evergreens for contrast. If you're using tender plants that will perish in cold weather, tuck in twigs or small branches in interesting shapes to fill in bare spots.

Landscape with Mums

Sure mums dress up porches and patios, but don’t skip your landscape when you’re looking for creative ways to decorate with mums. Plant or set out large potted varieties to make a big splash; small chrysanthemums can get lost in the kaleidoscope of colorful fall foliage. Add a few straw or hay bales to hold pumpkins or gourds at different heights. These mums blend beautifully with the fallen leaves scattered on the grass.

Experiment With Mum Containers

Mixing mums with other plants makes containers more colorful and eye-catching. Rebecca Sears, CMO & Resident Green Thumb at Ferry-Morse, says terra-cotta pots are classics, but "the changing of the seasons is a great time to experiment with planters of different sizes, colors, shapes and textures. For a rustic look, play around with wooden or metal planters or planters shaped like animals or wagons for a more whimsical style." This pot holds Swiss chard, an orange canna lily, dwarf mums, an ornamental cabbage, trailing creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia) and a purple-black ornamental pepper. Spikes of bluish-purple salvia peek out from one side, while an ornamental millet plant anchors the center of the arrangement.

Fill Window Boxes With Mums

For a small space, Rebecca recommends planting mums in window boxes to add color without clutter. "If space permits, try placing flameless candles, small scarecrows and seasonal signage around your mums to bring the coziness of fall through. Small stools, chairs or other types of stands can also be added so you can place your mums vertically, allowing you to add more decorative elements underneath and make the most of your space." In this image, a garden stake with a Frankenstein-like face adds a Halloween accent.

More Ideas: 10 Best Window Box Planters for Every Style

Mimic Pumpkins With Mums

A mound of orange mums in this container says, "Look at me! I'm a pumpkin." It's surrounded by colorful red pansies, penstemons (also known as beardtongues), flowering kales, ornamental peppers and lemon-yellow sedums. The plum-black trailing plant is Lysimachia, or creeping Jenny. A copper-colored ornamental millet plant at the back helps the vibrant colors stand out. When cold weather strikes, replace fading or frost-killed plants.

Decorate With Mums in Unexpected Colors

Orange and bronze mums are popular in autumn, but that doesn't mean you can't decorate with mums in colors. These pink and lavender mums pick up the pastel tones in an assortment of pumpkins and gourds. Try them on a porch, deck or patio and look for these kinds of fall fruits with stripes, knobby textures and other interesting features. Use just one or two colors of mums so your arrangement won't look too busy. Pumpkins and gourds will last longer if you don't put them directly on the ground.

Create Mum Spheres

Each fall, Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, puts on a stunning exhibition of mums. It's easy to make the beautiful mum spheres shown here. Start with a ball of water-absorbent foam from a floral supply store. Soak it in a bucket of water until it's completely saturated and drops to the bottom. Next, add a hook for hanging or omit the hook if you want to display your sphere in a saucer of water. Cut blooms from fresh mums, leaving short stems, and push them gently into the ball until it’s covered. The blooms will last about a week and you can replace them when they fade.

Frame Your Mum Spheres

For a one-of-a-kind display, hang your mum spheres in a frame or a faux window like this one at the Chrysanthemums & More! Celebration at Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. Use your frame indoors or out, but avoid hanging it where direct sunlight will make the flowers wilt. A sturdy frame, such as an old picture frame or mirror frame, will work. Surround your frame with more plants, as desired. This frame was built on-site at the park and rests on posts sunk into the ground. It's surrounded by mums in pots, kales, ornamental grasses and pumpkins.

Highlight a Niche with Mums

Create a cozy place to sit and admire the colors of the autumn leaves with a bench, a few pillows and some annual mums. These white mums repeat the white rocks used as mulch, while the orange ones pick up the hues of the pillows and pumpkins. Place your bench against a wall or a background of evergreen shrubs to make the colors stand out.

Make Your Mums Boo-tiful

Kids (and lots of adults) wear costumes for Halloween, so why not dress up your mums? Drop potted chrysanthemums into plastic pumpkins like the ones children carry to collect their treats, or look for pumpkin planters made of foam. You can also find ceramic or terra-cotta jack-o'-lantern planters decorated with spooky eyes and toothy grins. Halloween mums make cute gifts, too, when you add a ribbon bow in Halloween colors.

Mums in Containers at Longwood Gardens

A color wheel can help you find striking color combinations. This chrysanthemum display at Longwood Gardens mixes yellow peppers with orange and cream pumpkins and squash. Pink chrysanthemums stand out in bright blue and gray pots; most of the pots have a cylindrical shape to unify the display, but different heights add vertical interest. Ornamental grasses with fuzzy plumes repeat the pink-lavender of the flowers.

Mix Mums with Ornamental Grasses and Kales

Leafy flowering kales in shades of cream, green, pink and purple develop their best colors when the temperatures drop, making them great companions for autumnal mums. Ornamental grasses sway in fall breezes, adding movement to mum plantings. While some are annuals, others are hardy in Zones 4 to 9 or 5 to 9. They're available in different heights to suit your landscaping needs.

Where to Find Inspiration for Decorating with Mums

Plantings around commercial buildings can be a great place to find inspiration when you want to decorate with mums. These oversized planters are packed with yellow mums, salvia with tall, blue spikes and trailing sweet potato vines. A small tree adds height to the display (You could put your mums around a tree that's already in your yard.) but still allows plenty of sunshine to reach the plants.

Mum Ideas from Botanical Gardens

Need more ideas? Check out Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. In this image, wire pyramids filled with pumpkins make a backdrop for colorful mums in containers — and still more pumpkins. The exhibit also uses asters, bromeliads in complementary colors and trailing vines.

For more creative ways to decorate with mums, visit New York Botanical Garden (find dates of a kiku mum display in the Bourke-Sullivan Display House) and The Botanic Garden of Smith College.

Creative Ways to Decorate With Mums

Related To:

Shop This Look

Mums for a Tailgate Party

Hang Mums in Baskets

Decorate With Mums and Companion Plants

Float Mum Blooms

Border a Walkway With Mums

Pot Up Mums in Pumpkins

Accent Railings and Ledges With Mums

Dress Up Fences With Mums

Brighten a Porch With Mums

Make a Focal Point With Mums

Landscape with Mums

Experiment With Mum Containers

Fill Window Boxes With Mums

Mimic Pumpkins With Mums

Decorate With Mums in Unexpected Colors

Create Mum Spheres

Frame Your Mum Spheres

Highlight a Niche with Mums

Make Your Mums Boo-tiful

Mums in Containers at Longwood Gardens

Mix Mums with Ornamental Grasses and Kales

Where to Find Inspiration for Decorating with Mums

Mum Ideas from Botanical Gardens

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