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Planting, Growing, and Caring for Geraniums
Growing
How to Care for Geraniums
- If planting in the ground, add a light mulch to cover the soil to cool the root zone.
- Allow soil to dry to some extent between waterings, then water thoroughly. Over-moist soil does more damage than under-watering. Do the finger poke; if it鈥檚 dry at 1-inch depth, then water. Do not water from overhead nor splash the foliage when watering, or you鈥檒l invite disease.
- Deadheading is important for continuous bloom throughout the summer. Deadhead all spent blooms. Also, deadhead after heavy bloom or a strong rain. One reader shared a tip, 鈥淔or continued reblooming, finger pinch just below the spent flower as much as possible. I did, and each of my pelargoniums bloomed from spring into fall year after year.
- To promote bushiness and curtail legginess, pinch back the stems.
- During active growing months, fertilize every 2 weeks or so. Use a water-soluble fertilizer at half-strength. Don鈥檛 fertilize in winter, when the plant should be dormant.
- If you鈥檙e bringing in the plant for winter, water much less, but do not let the roots dry out entirely. Geraniums do best when given a period of dormancy through the winter months, during which they use less water and do not grow much. See below for more overwintering instructions.
- Geraniums can be repotted in spring to encourage new growth鈥攐r, if they need to be refreshed.
Overwintering Geraniums
- Geraniums that have spent the summer outdoors can be kept as houseplants, provided they get lots of sun. In northern climes, the sun may not be strong enough in late winter to stimulate buds on some varieties.
- Before the first fall frost, lift the plants and, using a sharp, clean knife, cut the stems back in a shapely fashion to about 6 to 8 inches. They should not have to support great masses of leaves in the low-sunlight environment they are about to enter. Save a few stems as cuttings to root鈥攁n easy way to multiply your plants.
- Transplant the 鈥渕other plant鈥 to the smallest pot possible鈥攅nough to just fit the roots鈥攗sing regular potting soil to fill.
- Keep the plants in the shade for a week, then place them in a sunny spot (they need all the sun they can get) and keep them cool.
- During winter, geraniums grow best with night temperatures of 50掳 to 60掳F (10掳 to 16掳C) but will survive if they drop to 32掳F (0掳C) and/or rise above 80掳F (27掳C), as long as they are kept relatively dry.
- When new growth appears in the spring, cut off all the old leaves.
The only thing more difficult than achieving new growth is keeping it. And here鈥檚 some help with that:
- Water is only available when the leaves show signs of drooping, and only small amounts are provided. Do not fertilize or feed the plants. It is critical that these plants get rest.
- If you want your overwintered geraniums to bloom for Memorial Day, pinch them back in February. Once warm weather returns and all danger of frost has passed, take the plants outdoors and transplant them to beds or pots, as you wish.
Catherine Boeckmann
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I bought a Sunbelt geranium 34 years ago for a pot outside in summer. I trim it back in fall, bring it into the basement where it gets sun all afternoon. It gets enormous over the winter, and blooms. I trim way back in spring, and put it outside, slowly into direct sunlight. I have split it many times, and just finished splitting and repotting it again, plus gave away many large clumps of the geranium to friends. I even gave a large piece to the nursery I bought it from 34 years ago!!
Wow! Awesome! You just inspired me to try to keep mine alive. I have 2 hanging baskets and it breaks my heart to watch them die this winter. Will try to keep them inside this year and see how it goes.
My mother and my grandmother used to pull their geraniums at the end of the summer, knock the dirt off the roots, and hang them upside down in the cellar. They dried out, dead as a doornail, it seemed. But late winter they would pot them up and they would come to life. Have you heard of this?
Hi Tim,
Yes, in addition to digging up geraniums and replanting them in pots, bare-root storage is a common way to store your geraniums during the winter months.
After removing the dirt from the root system, you can either place them in a large paper sack and store in a cool, dry location, or, like your mother and grandmother did, hang the plants upside down in a cool, dry location. The foliage and the shoot tips will eventually die and then in March, you want to prune each plant to remove all shriveled and dead material. What will be left is the to live stem tissue, which can be planted in pots for the remainder of the spring before planting outdoors in May.
Thanks for sharing!
I鈥檝e not only heard of it, I鈥檝e done it. As we speak, I have 3 plants in pouches in my garage ready to clean up and plant after the last frost. I鈥檓 hoping for the best.
My grandmother lived up stairs in the first house we purchased. She grew geraniums in large pots. One to a pot. The plants were a couple feet tall. She kept them in her northeast kitchen all winter and set them out on the porch roof for summer. She had a door to the roof. They bloomed beautiful all year. I have never seen geraniums that size again.
LOVELY memory. Thank you for sharing it.
I have two geraniums, they get at least 6 hrs of sun. I usually water every other day. But the leaves turn a little yellow and some near the planter have died turning brown and crispy. What am I doing wrong?
Hi Tammy, It sounds like a bacterial blight. Often the soil came with this blight so there’s not much you can do.
In general, it’s important the pots have good drainage, and have a balanced amount of nutrients, especially nitrogen.
Planting resistant varieties has been proven to be the most efficient, most reliable, and cheapest way to control bacterial blight. Learn more:
I have a 5 year old geranium. It's leaves have all turned Red this year? Any suggestions to get them back to green?
