Few plants have the universal appeal that the Pelargonium, our common geranium, enjoys today. Uncommon things are happening to this well-loved plant.
In the zonal group, the hybridizer is not only adding vigor and size to the blooms but is bringing forth lovely soft shades not seen in previous varieties – creamy pinks, light apricot, orange, and salmon.
New dwarf kinds are also being added to the four already known.
Add these to some of the old favorites, including the colored-leaved group and the best of the scented, and you have a winter window garden full of beauty, color, and fragrance hard to match.
Crisp, Sunny Days For Bloom
First, we need crisp, sunny days, for it is hard to get bloom during weeks of dark weather. Given sunshine from a south or southwest window, we have the choice of location in the house due to the swing of the sun southward in winter.
If the man of the house is good at soldering, have him make a galvanized tray to fit the window sill with edges turned up a couple of inches to hold moisture. Place in this 1 ½” inches of clear gravel or small shells or sifted ashes from the coal furnace.
This material holds the surplus water, which drains from the pots after watering and keeps the pots from drying out so fast.
Cuttings Ready For Winter Display
To have plants ready for a winter display, choose strong but not too succulent tip growths from your healthiest plants about the middle of August.
Cut these ends straight across with a sharp knife about 3 to 4″, remove all leaves and stipules on the lower 2″ of the stern, and insert the stems in clean, medium-fine sand.
Taking cuttings from clean, healthy plants is becoming increasingly important. The longer any plant is grown, the more troubles usually beset it, such as leaf spot, mosaic, stem rot, etc.
If you propagate from a plant with leaf diseases or mosaic, you simply carry forward the trouble into the new set of plants. Therefore, a clean, vigorous, healthy stock is essential.
Another point to stress is that you cannot get stocky bushy plants from long, leggy cuttings. Therefore keep the cuttings fairly Short – about 3″ or 4″ inches long. Keep the sand moist, but not soaking, while cuttings are rooting.
Soil Mixture
When roots are 1/2″ – 3/4″ inches long, pot up in 2″ to 1/2″ inches pots using a soil mixture of 3/1 sandy loam mixed with 1/4 leaf mold or peat, when these pots become full of roots, the plants, if very vigorous, can be moved into 3 1/2″ – 4″ size or, if less sturdy, into 3″ pots.
In this latter shift, a well-balanced fertilizer such as a 5-8-7 should be thoroughly mixed with the soil at the rate of a 4″ potful to a bushel of soil.
I often get a good bloom display from old plants lifted from the garden in the Fall before the danger of frost is cut back to make it shapely. These are potted into 4″ s, 5 “s, or 6 “s and kept growing vigorously. They bloom from December on.
Watering In Winter
When watering in winter, warm the tap water to remove the chill and keep the soil moist but riot soaking. I once told a customer to keep her geraniums on the dry side.
She withheld water for 10 days and then wondered why the leaves turned yellow! It is hard to give explicit directions for watering, for in one house, the air will be dry and hot, in another cooler moisture.
The latter condition is, of course, more congenial for plant growth. Watch the soil and keep it moderately moist; watch the leaves and keep them a good dark green.
Fertilizing
About once a month, water with a fertilizer tea or stir into the soil one tsp. of a well-balanced fertilizer to a 4″ inches pot and then water this in.
Too much fertilizer will make the plants grow too lush and tend to postpone bloom, so do not overdo the feeding.
If the soil becomes caked or covered with green scum, stir it on the surface and keep it open and friable.
Best Loved Plant
There seems no end to this versatile genus, which makes an excellent collector’s hobby plant and a comfortable, companionable friend, passing from home to home by sharing slips widely used in parks and Memorial Day decorations.
I believe we can still call it the best-loved plant of the city or farm throughout our land.
44659 by D. Brigham