Selection & Timing Make the Difference

Jessie McMillin

Building a profitable garden mum program begins with good genetics and the right product selections to fit your markets’ needs. At Ball Seed, we’re committed to your success by offering a top-tier assortment through our rigorous trialing and selection process, as well as ongoing education and support from our technical services and sales teams to get you to the seasonal finish line.

Our Ball Mums are second to none due to our dedication to progress and innovation. We’re motivated to continuously enhance our lineup and deliver to our customers varieties that thrive while growing, perform at retail and delight garden consumers.

In our latest catalogs, you’ll find an extensive selection of mums, carefully curated to give you flexibility, reliability and performance. Looking for bold colors? Uniform timing? Need exceptional shelf life? Ball Seed has the varieties and product forms you need to help you maximize mum success.

Trialing & evaluation
Assessing garden mums takes me all over North America to multiple climates and several markets to identify trends and opportunities for mum growers. From coast to coast, mum trials help Ball Seed make assortment decisions based on grow-out evaluations—both natural season and blackcloth-shaded. This gives our customers confidence that they’re getting the best-performing varieties for their region.
What characteristics am I looking for?

Flower response times
Color retention
Habit
Disease tolerance

Overall, I’m always looking for the most reliable, eye-catching and long-lasting variety possible. Our Ball Seed sales representatives work with the most trusted supply network in the U.S. and Canada to provide our customers reliable varieties and beautiful mums.

Better reliability ultimately benefits the full supply chain: The grower has a smooth production and ships quality mums to market; the retailer has an appealing product to sell when shoppers are ready to buy; and the end consumer enjoys on-trend colors and long-lasting mums to decorate for the season. Win-win-win!

Jessie’s picks
To get your business excited for the next garden mum growing season, below are a few of my top choices you should consider for 2026:

Cyclone Family: Each of the mums in this family sport vibrant colors (Golden Yellow, White, Pink, Light Pink, Yellow) and fantastic color retention that will help with overall sell-through. Plants have a medium vigor and mounded habit with a flower date of 9/26.
Axios Family: What an amazing European habit (mounding, floriferous and sturdy) on these mums, with gorgeous color options (Pink, White, Yellow, Purple, Coral, Light Pink, Orange)! Axios has a 9/24 bloom date and large/medium vigor. I expect this family to be an easy add-on to every mum grower’s program due to its uniformity, shipability and dependable habit.
Astral White: Here’s Ball Mum’s earliest-blooming white mum, with a natural-season flowering time of 9/6. Its blooms are decorative and stand up to heat. This is a great choice to start your mum season off with a kick.
Cosmic Series: This is my pick for the very late season. Cosmic has a European habit that looks great in baskets or containers. Plants have a medium/small vigor. This family has excellent color retention and a 10/9 bloom date. Great as a standalone or in mixed containers.

Resources for success
Ball Seed is not only your source for ordering the top garden mum genetics, but it’s your year-long destination for resource guides, tools and grower tips to help your team produce and sell top-quality mums.

Find technical services on-demand at our website, ballseed.com/gardenmums.
View and download our latest 2026-2027 Ball Mums Catalog and Growing Guide, which includes color ratio charts and combo inspirations.
Use our “Mum Growth Tracking Tool” to capture your initial specs then track growth each week to visualize your crop’s progress and identify any setbacks.

Book your 2026 mums program today on WebTrack. Ordering through Ball Seed gives you access to 24/7 availability and order tracking. Get started now for the best choices in colors and mum types. Speak with your Ball Seed sales representative or contact our live customer service team with any questions. GT

Jessie McMillin is the Ball Mums Product Manager for Ball Seed, North America’s largest seed and horticultural distributor. Learn more at ballseed.com/gardenmums.