White flowering mum

i think i might try this....

oh, nice. I've mostly only seen these as cut flowers in bunches; not the sort of thing to encourage one to grow them. but these look really nice - are they naturally so neatly rounded? what height and spread are they?

Not very big, less than 2' tall and about as wide. I have never seen one larger than this. They die all the way back after winter here, sometimes they don't survive. They are not always this neat looking, the trick to keeping them neat is to cut them back mid-summer about half way. Otherwise they will likely get too tall and break, they will also bloom in August and be done by fall if not cut back. They are quite weak and are easily damaged by strong winds or storms. If they are cut back and not damaged by the weather they will make nice looking plants though!

lol that sounds like a lot of work! worth it for the effect, I suppose, but makes me put a question mark against them on my "want" list.

I always make it sound worse than it is. Cut them back mid-summer once and don't let any dogs trample them, you'll be fine. We have a cold climate, you probably wouldn't need to worry about heavy mulch. Just get this type of mum and not florist mums, maybe the florist mums would survive there but they are way too tender here.

florist mums are the standard, but never been really fond of them, not sure why, unless it's beadause almost every garden that had mums had them.

I'll take the question mark off the list and try them as and when I can; they certainly do look nice.

I don't care much for mums either, even now lol. I kind of hope they die so I don't feel bad for composting them but they are nice in fall. If the only thing keeping you from trying a plant is fear of killing it just go for it. If I hadn't I never would have tried daphnes and now I have 40-50 of them haha. If you like it, try it and if you kill it then buy something else to kill :)

lol i do tend to anthropomorphise (it that's how you spell it) about plants - i don't wanter with a hose because I wouldn't like being suddenly drenched in chilly water on a warm day when I'm feeling snug; I don't mess them about too much, so I tend to the other extreme of "benign neglect" - the less I do to them, the less chance of me doing something wrong and damaging them. But I've got to learn to be a bit stricter - letting plants do what they like is as bad as letting children to what they like, they'llboth run wild.