Stop Feeding the Mum Machine
Our hill of wild aster in full October bloom.
Every fall, the same scene plays out across America: grocery store entrances stacked high with potted mums, their tight clusters of blooms promising instant autumn while you drink your pumpkin spiced latte. Mums bought by the millions, plopped onto porches, and then tossed in the trash once the season fades. It’s a ritual that feels cozy and familiar.
Most people don’t realize that the mums sold in big-box stores are more like seasonal decorations than living plants. They’re often forced into bloom with chemicals, grown in non-native soils, and bred to produce dense flowers at the expense of pollen and nectar. They look perfect for a few weeks, but that perfection comes at a cost to the planet and pollinators.
What should you plant instead? Asters are the real fall flower. They thrive naturally, return every year, and actually serve a purpose beyond porch décor. Where mums mark the end of a season, asters keep it alive.
Here are some reasons to grow asters instead of consuming mums:
Native Beauty, Not Disposable Décor
Mums are marketed as the official flower of fall, but they’re not native to most of North America. Mums, native to China and Japan, are bred for quick color, not longevity. Once frost hits, they wilt and pots end up in landfills. However, asters belong in North America. They come back every year, bloom late into autumn, and ask for almost nothing in return. Plant them once, and they’ll reward you for seasons to come.
A Lifeline for Pollinators
By the time fall arrives, most nectar sources have dried up. That’s when asters step in, bursting into bloom when pollinators need them most. Bees, butterflies, and other insects rely on them to gather enough food before winter. Mums found at the store offer little to nothing. They’ve been bred for show, not sustenance. Every mum we buy in place of a native bloom is one less opportunity for pollinators to survive the cold months ahead.
Low Maintenance, High Reward
Asters thrive where many plants won’t. They handle poor soil, inconsistent rain, and neglect with grace. Even if you plant mums, they are finicky. Mums require perfect drainage, regular pruning, and often still don’t make it through winter unless conditions are ideal. Aster is the better choice if you want easy.
Breaking the Cycle of Consumerism
Fall mums are the pumpkin spice lattes of the garden world: convenient, cute, and completely disposable. The cycle to buy, display, and toss keeps us spending money while quietly harming the environment. Mums are grown in mass quantities with heavy pesticide use and shipped long distances, only to serve a few weeks of visual appeal. Growing asters rejects that narrative because they ask us to slow down, to invest in something that gives back rather than takes away.
We grow so much aster.
On our property, we’ve let the asters have their way. We have this steep hill that was once over-mowed and boggy from natural springs. It was sloppy and unusable when we moved in, except Moira enjoyed mud baths in it. But last year, we noticed a few wild heath asters popping up, their white blooms soft against the fading greens in the fall. We left them alone to go to seed. This year, there are hundreds of large Aster plants. The hill is alive with bees and the hum of life preparing for winter.
It’s stunning. Just absolutely beautiful.
And it’s proof that when we stop feeding the mum machine and start letting nature lead, the reward is far greater than any store-bought pot could ever offer.
