I had a 'pin cushion' mum (meaning it stayed compact like a pincushion and didn't require pinching back before July) that was a gift, the kind sitting in front of grocery stores, etc (no longer have it). Mine always looked very dead early on. Didn't keep any green. Can't say for sure (don't remember) but probably didn't cut it back until early season (since I'm not much on cutting back in fall unless I'm supposed to). And then come spring or summer, I'd see little green growth coming out from the 1" dead wood. Sorry I can't tell you WHEN exactly -- but just saying -- mine would look VERY dead. It did not stay green all year. And I'm thinking - not sure, tho - but since it blooms so late it didn't start sprouting when everything else did. Dunno if this 'test' applies to flowering perennials (y'all correct me if I'm wrong) but do you have any wood sticking out of the dirt? My 'gardening guru' just taught me this after I called her recently about some $25 shrubs I found (still in pots) thrown out for trash and didn't know if they were worth saving. She said to do the "fingernail test". Scrap the wood closest to the dirt with your thumbnail and if there's green underneath, then it's still living. Don't know if that applies to plants like mums, tho. I think I remember new growth coming off mums' old wood so would think it would be the same???

I have mixed success, usually buying in the early fall: I never see them much earlier. Mine are all the small flowered cushion ones. I've been planting them yearly but not spending much since they are iffy on return. I'd say about 30% have come back, as long as I don't plant them too late. I've bought big potted ones and tiny 88 cent ones, makes no difference in survival. The big ones bought this summer were inhaled by slugs before I could turn around and put bait out. Actually disappeared almost overnight, eaten down to tiny short twigs. They are coming up from the base but I sure won't see flowers on those anymore this year. Since there's almost nothing exposed to cold and wind above ground, maybe those will live! The little 88 cent cheapies are doing fine. When they emerge in spring (those that live...) I nip them constantly to make them bushy.

Run. Seriously. Your GF's parenting style is too different from yours (and I'd say she's going to have some trouble with those children when they become teenagers) but if she wants to raise a pack of hoons you can't really stop her. If you try to it will only result in lots of arguments between the two of you, arguments you will always lose when she pulls out the "they're MY kids, not yours" card and throws it on the table. It won't get better and you will spend years feeling like a second class citizen in your own home. Then you will leave and wish you'd done it years earlier. So do it now.

I grew Gene Boerner in my PNW rose garden. I got him because he had hybridized so many good roses. He was an admirer of Kordes and used to write to him a lot asking questions about hybridizing. I can see in some of his roses the effect of his Kordes knowledge. Gene Boerner doesn't have large flowers like to-days roses do but they are an attractive shape and colour plus have a rose type fragrance. In my garden he was a disease free rose. Mr. Boerner knew that roses smelt best when it was warm and humid. So he would place a fragrant rose under his hat so when he showed it to someone, it had a strong fragrance.