Not long after Pumpkin Spice Lattes arrive in your local coffee shop, everyone seems to get some mums and pumpkins for their front porches. Most people leave them on their porches for the season and then toss them. However, mums are great perennials, so if you plant them directly into the ground in late summer or early fall, they’ll most likely come back in the spring.
Interestingly enough, mums (full name chrysanthemum) can be grown indoors in a bright, sunny spot. Did you know that mums were tested in the NASA Clean Air Study, which is a test to see which plants can clean indoor air quality? Mums were found to improve the air quality against all 5 of the major toxins that were tested. How cool is that?!
Mums are inexpensive, and you can find them anywhere from grocery stores to home improvement stores. I picked mine up from Walmart for $4.88. I wanted to use mine for a fall centerpiece before I planted them outside. Since I was going to be planting them outside, and I only needed them on my table for a couple of days, I didn’t want to plant them into a pot.
I decided to find a way to dress them up a little and hide their ugly, plastic pots. I dug through my donate pile and found a sweater and a shirt that went well with my table cloth.
I cut the shirts for a square piece of material that I could wrap around the pots. The piece of twine that I used with the striped material was a scrap we had in the garage. The striped piece of fabric around the sweater material was actually part of the packaging for the tablecloth that I was using.
This would be a really cute and easy way to dress up a mum to give as a gift. The mums cost $4.88 and the other materials were free because I already had them! Do you use mums in your fall decor?
These are going to be planted in my big whiskey barrel planters in the backyard once I am done with them on the table. Happy fall, y’all!
Belle Antiquarian 
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