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Apr 11, 2024 · Geranium Care. Full sun. Long bloom period. Deadhead spent blooms. Geraniums offer a lot of enjoyment for little effort. Give them plenty of sun, remove spent flowers and they will bush out and produce multiple blooms. This is a dependable, showy plant for home gardeners that performs well with minimal care. Light.
- Barbara Gillette
- Geranium
- Pelargonium spp.
- Geraniaceae
April 15, 2024. Pelargonium (aka common geraniums) are colorful summer-flowering plants popular for hanging baskets, pots, and garden beds. Drought- and heat-tolerant, these tender annuals can bloom all summer from June through fall frost! See how to grow and care for pelargonium.
- Where to Plant Geraniums
- How and When to Plant Geraniums
- Geranium Care Tips
- Pests and Problems
- How to Propagate Geraniums
- Types of Geranium
- Geranium Companion Plants
- Garden Plans For Geranium
Geraniums shine in beds and borders. Traditional bedding types love hot weather and hold up well in dry conditions. They are also focal flowers in container groupings and standouts in window boxes. With their wide range of color, shape, and size of blooms, it's hard not to find a reason to use geraniums everywhere. Although most geraniums are grown...
Wait until the last frost date in spring has passed to plant sun-loving annual and perennial geraniums. You can also plant perennial geraniums in early fall when the weather cools slightly. Choose an area with well-draining soil; geraniums don't like wet feet. Use a rake to loosen the soil down 12 inches and add compost. Give each plant space to gr...
Light
Most annual geraniums do best in a full-sun location. Ivy geraniums are an exception; they prefer some light shade.
Soil and Water
Loamy, well-draining soilis best for growing geraniums. If your soil is heavy, incorporate compost, peat or perlite into it. If you are planting geraniums in containers, use commercial topsoil and mix in sand and a little peat moss for the best drainage. Good drainage is essential. Wait until the top inch of soil is dry to water the geranium plants. Watering once or twice a week, depending on the season and weather, is usually sufficient.
Fertilizer
Annual geraniums are heavy feeders. The plants need to be fertilized once or twice a week with a liquid product to support flower production, especially when they are planted in containers. Outside of bloom season, applying a balanced, slow-release granular fertilizer every four to six weeks is sufficient. Follow the product label for the amount to use.
Some geraniums, particularly the ivy variety, suffer from a condition called edema on the underside of the leaves. When soil temperatures are warm and wet and air temperature is cooler and humid, plants take up more water than they can hold, which causes the leaf cells to stretch and become damaged with scabs that turn brown and bumpy. This isn't c...
Stem cuttings are the best way to propagate geraniums. To take a stem cutting, cut the stem just above a node (which encourages new growth on the parent plant). On your cutting, locate another node several inches away from the original cut and cut beneath it. Ideally, the cutting should be 4 to 6 inches long. Remove the leaves except for any at the...
Annual geraniums come in different types: zonal, ivy, and regal. The most common of the annual variety, zonal geraniums, is the most recognizable geranium; it gets its name from the broad band of darker coloring on its leaves. In some, this "zone" is more pronounced than in others. If you don't see this banding on the leaves but the flowers look li...
Nicotiana
Many types of nicotiana are terrifically fragrant (especially at night) and are wonderful in attracting hummingbirds and hummingbird moths. There are several types of nicotiana, also called flowering tobacco, because it's a cousin of the familiar tobacco plant. Try the shorter, more colorful types in containers or the front of beds or borders. The taller, white-only types, which can reach 5 feet, are dramatic in the back of borders. They're ideal for night gardens because they're usually most...
Pentas
Pentas is one of the best butterfly-attracting plants around. It blooms all summer long, even during the hottest weather, with large clusters of starry blooms that attract butterflies by the dozens as well as hummingbirds. The plant grows well in containers and in the ground—and it can even make a good houseplant if you have enough light. It does best in full sun and moist, well-drained soil. Pentas is grown as an annualin most parts of the country, but it's hardy in Zones 10-11. Plant it out...
Fountaingrass
Like so many grasses, fountaingrass is spectacularwhen backlit by the rising or setting sun. Named for its graceful spray of foliage, fountaingrass sends out beautiful, fuzzy flower plumes in late summer. The white, pink, or red plumes (depending on variety) continue into fall and bring a loose, informal look to plantings. This plant self-seeds freely, sometimes to the point of becoming invasive.
Tropical-Look Garden Plan
Make a bold garden statement with dramatic flowers and foliage.
- Lynn Mcalpine
- 1 min
Sep 8, 2023 · Native to the hot climate of South Africa, geraniums are a beautiful perennial in many other areas of the world. Also known as bed and zonal geranium, this attractive and familiar flower is a popular annual and container plant, prized for its use in hanging baskets and window boxes.
- Steve Bender
- 56 sec
- The plants we know as "geraniums" aren't actually geraniums. If you point to a geranium at a garden shop, you're actually probably identifying Pelargonium, a member of a group of plants which have commonly come to be called ‘geraniums.'
- There are hundreds of known species of geraniums. Geraniums are native to South Africa, and in the 17th century, they made their way to Europe, where they remain popular plantings.
- Many geranium species have heavily scented leaves. Geraniums are known for their aromatic green foliage, the fragrance of which varies from plant to plant.
- Geranium leaves can be used in the kitchen. Both the flowers and aromatic foliage of geraniums are edible and can be used for culinary purposes. According to The Southern Living Garden Book, you can "use fresh leaves of all types for flavoring jelly and iced drinks; use dried leaves in sachets and potpourri."
Geranium is a genus of 422 species of annual, biennial, and perennial plants that are commonly known as geraniums or cranesbills. They are found throughout the temperate regions of the world and the mountains of the tropics, with the greatest diversity in the eastern part of the Mediterranean region .
Mar 13, 2023 · Unlike zonal geraniums ( Pelargoniums ), true geraniums require a dormant winter chill period and thus are not practical to grow as houseplants. Hardy geraniums (Geranium spp.) are also known as perennial geraniums or cranesbill geraniums. They are adaptable, easy to grow, and bloom for months.
