Garden geranium

Garden geranium: plant description

To begin with, it is worth stipulating that the garden geranium is different from the one that grows with you or your friends in the apartment. They can be distinguished not only by their external parameters.

Unlike room geranium, garden geranium is much more frost-hardy and not so whimsical. Garden geranium is able to tolerate and give good growth and flowering in almost any weather conditions: in a lit place or in the shade and during drought.

Indoor geranium is very thermophilic and, even with slight frosts, will suffer greatly, therefore it will not be able to be outdoors in autumn and even more so in winter.

Wintering garden geranium: important tips and tricks

In fact, nothing complicated, since this frost-resistant flower does not need additional shelter. It is only necessary to get rid of the leaves that could not bear the unexpected frosts before wintering.

If the condition of the soil is such that it needs refining, the planting of geraniums must be covered with a thin layer of mulch, for example, with chips or compost. If geranium grew in specialized containers in the summer, then it is simply enough to move them indoors.

Overwintering garden geraniums can be organized in several ways.

The first way - winter storage in the ground. This option is only suitable for a small number of geraniums. If in the summer they grew in a small container, then in the fall they can be safely transferred from the garden plot to the house, where they will continue their development.

In this case, the garden geranium will need abundant watering and feeding every month (it is advisable to use phosphorus for feeding). Other parameters, such as air temperature and illumination, need to be adjusted for the comfortable existence of geraniums, depending on its variety.

If garden geraniums grew in a garden in a flower bed or in a very large container, transplants into pots of suitable size will additionally be required. Before transplanting, it is necessary to remove leaves and inflorescences damaged by weather conditions or pests. Next, cut the cuttings.

In order to increase the survival rate of garden geraniums at home, it is recommended to select younger parts of the stems, since they can give active growth and development (the old parts of the stems will lag behind in growth, and therefore will significantly lag behind in the formation of buds).

The container for the cuttings must be selected in such a size that the roots, on the one hand, are free in the container, and on the other, so that the pot is not so free that the geranium would begin to engage only in the development of its root system, and not in flowering.

The soil mixture (substrate) must be sufficiently loose and nutritious. Stores sell ready-made substrates, but you can prepare the mixture yourself using peat, sand and humus.

Do not forget that in too heavy soil, the root system of the plant can become moldy. Before you dig up the flower, you need to water it abundantly in the end. This is necessary in order to make it easier and without traumatizing the roots to extract geraniums from the ground.

Next, the roots in the pot must be carefully positioned, and the finished nutrient mixture must be poured on top. It is necessary to place the roots in such a way that there is about two centimeters of the substrate above the tops of the roots. It is also recommended to cut the seedling a little. This makes it easier to adapt to new conditions (the cut is made literally a few millimeters above the node).

The rest of the branches also need to be pruned a little. Such "sparing" pruning provokes the growth of fresh shoots of garden geraniums, but they will not gain full strength, since winter will still make itself felt. At the very end of winter, you need to re-prune.

Second way is to prevent geraniums from growing in winter, or to slow them down.

As mentioned earlier, geranium does not need light or moisture as much as many other flowers, so it can withstand winter at rest. So, in order to organize the wintering of garden geranium in this way, you first need to reduce watering (you need to reduce it gradually so that the flower does not experience "severe stress") until the soil becomes dry.

Further, garden geraniums are removed from the soil (if the roots are still wet, they must be additionally dried in the sun). Then each of the flowers is wrapped in a separate paper bag, but so that one end of the geranium remains open. This is to maintain air exchange. Paper rolls should be stored in a cool place away from sunlight or artificial light.

This method is ideal for storing a large collection of perennial garden geraniums.