I have a source for information on "mum" bonsai. You might try contacting Dave. davegLL@LLrc.us He mounted a spectacular show of these bonsai at the National Arboretum in Wash. DC several years ago. I doubt if there will be another one like it for many years. I hope he will respond to your request for information. He has a wealth of knowledge. Peace, JR

I am in zone6a and I have had good luck with Mums coming back. I haven't a lot..three altogether up until last year, but those three have been coming back for at least 7 years. One was up against the house facing west and I dug it out and potted it up in the spring and it is still in a pot. The other was in a part shade corner that seems partly exposed. I think the third is Sheffield Pink and it is in too much shade and entirely exposed to the windiest part of the yard and comes back every year, even a few years with cold temps and very little snow cover. Last year, I purchased two mums and two asters at a local nursery to use in my containers. I enjoyed them all last fall and just left them in their 20" containers all winter. I was very surprised to see both asters come back and one of the mums. I moved the asters to perennial beds in late spring I guess and they seem to have formed buds, so I am waiting to see how they do when they bloom. The mum that survived was in a window box on the ground and I left it there all summer. It hasn't grown any larger than it was last year but there are buds on it. I really should plant that one in the ground this fall. Soon actually. I also bought a 3 pack of mums from Bluestone in the spring and they are in the ground after hanging around too long. [g] They haven't grown much but at least they have been in the ground for awhile but I just realized they are in my windiest location. So now I am not sure whether to try moving them now or wait for spring. I might try to buy more in the spring from Bluestone. I don't usually buy three of the same kind either. They have combos but they haven't appealed to me. They do have a nice selection of mums that are different than what you usually see locally. Really, I do understand the point Donna was making about 'impulse buying', but really I prefer to wait until something is in bloom to choose it any way. I don't think of that as impulse buying though. I just don't think it works out well every time, to choose a plant from a photo in a catalog, or a book. The colors in photos are just not dependable. Therefore, I have purchased every mum, except this past order from Bluestone, in the fall. What is worse, I usually have used them in containers all fall and then either left them in containers all winter or planted them in the ground. So it is surprising that they have come back.

I don't actually make combinations much with my asters. I use them in beds which have mostly finished out by the time the asters bloom. I use color repetition from bed to bed to carry the eye around the gardens. For example, the back has all purple asters with the exception of some wild self-seeded ones in white, which I pull out as soon as they start to fade or else they would take over the yard. I find that asters look really great fronting my mixed shrub borders and near the many grasses (tall and small) in my yard. Another advantage of this method is that all my purple asters started from two small plants bought many years ago and the purple color works well with most any stray bloom from other fading perennials. I also use tall asters within my lily plantings. I find that the sturdy lily stalks from finished lilies (which have to stay standing until they turn golden colored - often long into the fall season) make good props for the asters. Since I stake many of the lilies, it's also an easy matter to move a stake or two or add some extra twine here or there for the asters. I also like to plant asters in with large daylilies. Their drying bloom stalks will do a nice natural looking prop up for limpish asters. Here are some more examples: A semi-circular patio bed with smallish daylilies has a small topiary shrub in the center, low wine-colored mums towards the front on one side and Purple Dome asters (the tallest planting here) towards the curving back edge. Separated from that bed by a patch of grass, is a long narrow upside-down "smile" shaped bed that works across the whole yard with 3 ornamental trees, small shrubs and grasses, and pockets of perennials. Two of the pockets have clumps of a very tall unnamed purple aster that I have moved from house to house. The only other flower in bloom is the white Anemone Honorine Jobert. Other color is provided by the waving golden/silver/or bronze seedheads of the grasses, Crimson Pygmy Barberry, and Montgomery Blue Spruce. A narrow side yard bed along the side edge of these beds holds the fading flowers and shiny seedheads of 40 feet of 2 Sweet Autumn Clematis, and a intermittent small hedge like planting of a dwarf Helianthus called First Light - a very late bloomer and yellow cushhion mums in pots. The other side edge bed (the garden gets hotter in color to that side) has fruiting shrubs (both red and black fruiting varieties) more purple asters between shrub groupings, (& also with daylilies and lilies - yellow, oranges, reds, here in summer). The purple works well with any stray gaillardia blooms and the very late blooming Kniphofia Bressingham Comet which reside in a raised bed just to the right of this border.

think of it this way .. they are a fall flowering plant.. so they trigger bloom as the days get shorter ... and right now.. the days are nearly as short as they will be .... so rhiz is suggesting that they will not trigger again.. until the sun starts rising on the horizon .... probably some scientific term for such.. photo-something-or-another ... lol ... i cant think of anything outdoors.. in late november.. in the northern hemisphere .. that is going to rebloom this time of year .... [leaving out the tropical areas, or course.. and the sub tropic deep south] ken