Geraniums are incredibly simple to store for the winter—just place them in a cardboard box or a paper bag and secure the top. The following advice will help them survive:
- Maintain geraniums in a cool, dry area with a temperature of 50 to 60 degrees F.
- Once a month or so, remove dried leaves from the bag or box and check for mold.
- Check the stems quickly at the same time; they should be stiff. Throw away any dried-out, shriveled stems you uncover.
- If you see that the plants are becoming really dry and crispy, give them a brief soak in water.
- Plants with stems that appear to be blackened or mildewed should be disposed away.
Geraniums are typically kept in a sack upside down. Although the exact cause is unknown, one idea holds that it does so by pushing moisture into the stems. Whatever the cause, storing them in this manner is neither harmful nor necessarily harmful.
Can geraniums survive the cold in pots?
Geraniums can be overwintered inside in three different ways: as a houseplant, as a dormant bare root, or as cuttings. Your decision will be influenced by the amount of room you have indoors and the range of temperatures you can tolerate. Here is a closer examination of each method.
Overwintering geraniums as houseplants
If you want to keep the entire potted plant and have lots of room close to a window that gets bright, direct light, go with this option. A drafty west-facing window would be the ideal place for your potted geranium to spend the winter because geraniums prefer it chilly (55 to 65 F is optimum).
Wash the foliage well with your hose and repot the plant in new potting soil to prevent bringing unwanted pests from outside. You might also use insecticidal soap, which is sold in most garden centers and hardware stores as well as online. Avoid taking the plant indoors if it shows any signs of pests or illness. Only strong plants have a chance of successfully overwintering indoors.
During the winter, keep the soil wet but not damp. No more humidity is required. If the stems begin to sag, pinch them back to keep the plant compact throughout the winter. When springtime comes around, you may start fertilizing once more and transfer the plant back outside as soon as the temperature reliably rises above 50 F.
Overwintering geraniums as dormant bare root plants
This is the most typical way to overwinter geraniums, but it won’t work unless you have a dark, dry place that stays around 50 degrees throughout the winter.
First, dig up your geranium before it freezes and shake the dirt off the roots. To stop mold from forming, let the plant sit and dry for a few days before storage. Before moving onto the following phase, the roots must be completely dry.
The roots should be kept in a dark, dry place that doesn’t get colder than 45 degrees throughout the winter. Geranium roots should be kept at a temperature of 50 F. You can keep them by doing:
- It has been customary for generations to hang the plants upside-down from the rafters;
- placing them on a shelf after wrapping them in newspaper or a paper bag;
- they were put in a cardboard box.
Step 3: Every month or so, look for mold, black leaves, or limp stems at the roots. Remove any plant or root components that are harmful. Most of the stems should endure the winter in good shape. Before re-storing them if they become too wilted, give them a good bath in water and let them air dry.
Step 4: Reviving your geraniums involves cleaning them up, pruning the stems back to healthy green growth, and replanting them in new potting soil about six weeks before your final frost date. Where the new roots will grow, bury the stems two nodes deep. When you notice fresh growth in one to two weeks, keep the plants somewhat dry; after that, keep the soil moist until the plants are big enough to replant outside.
Overwintering geraniums as cuttings
If your light windowsill area is limited or you are concerned that bringing in your entire potted plant would also attract unwanted bugs, this is a nice technique to try. Additionally, it’s a fantastic way to multiply your existing geraniums.
To trim plants, you’ll need:
- a cutting edge.
- Most hardware stores and garden centers sell rooting hormone, which is sold online.
- Use little terracotta or plastic pots, or recycle a clear takeaway container for roasted chicken.
- If you don’t eat chicken, use clear plastic bags to cover the pans.
For the winter, should geraniums be pruned back?
You should prune a perennial geranium after it has bloomed all season and starts to wither. This helps the plant store energy for the spring while simultaneously keeping it dormant for the winter. This could need to happen any time between August and late October, depending on your zone. Cut perennial geraniums down to 2 or 3 inches above the soil with a pair of trustworthy shears, ideally at nodes or new growth points. Take out any more flowers or foliage. You’ll have a collection of thick stems that is really ugly. But don’t panic, your blooms will return in full bloom the following spring.
Do geraniums survive the UK winter in pots?
The number of plants you wish to overwinter and the amount of available space will determine the best manner to do so. Most of the time, it is easiest to maintain them in pots and move them into a room with plenty of natural light, air, and warmth, like a greenhouse or conservatory. However, it could be better to store geraniums in bar-root form in paper bags and keep them in a cold, dry spot if you wish to overwinter a number of them.
Next year, how can you preserve geraniums?
Geraniums have the advantage of easily entering dormancy, allowing for storage in a manner akin to that of sensitive bulbs. This method of storing geraniums for the winter entails digging the plant up in the fall and carefully removing the soil from the roots. The roots should not be spotless, just clear of dirt clumps.
In a room with a constant temperature of roughly 50 degrees Fahrenheit, such as your garage or basement, hang the plants upside down (10 C.). Rehang the geranium plant after soaking the roots in water for an hour once a month. All of the leaves on the geranium will fall off, but the stems will still be alive. Replant the dormant geraniums in the ground in the spring, and they will come to life.
Should geraniums be pruned in the fall?
reducing after blossoming After flowering, early-flowering perennials like geraniums and delphiniums are pruned to almost ground level to promote new growth and late-summer blooming. Then, in the fall or spring, these are again pruned.
When should you take geraniums out of winter storage?
Iowa’s AMES
Beautiful plants like geraniums offer color and life to any landscape. They are not prepared to endure the hard winter weather, though. Geraniums can be brought indoors to overwinter and then replanted in the spring.
Horticulturists at ISU Extension and Outreach can assist with your inquiries regarding overwintering geraniums and how to keep them healthy during winter weather.
How can I overwinter geraniums indoors?
By obtaining cuttings, potting up individual plants, or preserving bare-root plants in a cool, dry place, geraniums can be overwintered indoors. Before the first fall frost, remove plants from the garden (or take cuttings).
How do you take geranium cuttings?
Take three- to four-inch stem cuttings from the terminal ends of the shoots using a sharp knife. Pinch the bottom leaves off each cutting before dipping the base in a rooting hormone. Insert the cuttings into vermiculite or a mix of perlite and sphagnum peat moss as a rooting media. Rooting containers that have drainage holes on the bottom are pots and flats. Just enough to allow the cuttings to support themselves should be inserted into the media. Water the rooting media once all of the cuttings have been placed.
Place a clear plastic bag or dome over the cuttings to stop the plant foliage from wilting after allowing the medium to drain for a few minutes. The cuttings should then be placed under bright light—not direct sunshine. In six to eight weeks, the cuttings should begin to root. Remove the cuttings from the rooting media after they have healthy root systems and plant each rooted cutting in a separate pot. Until spring, keep the potted plants in a window with natural light or under artificial lighting.
How do you overwinter geraniums as potted plants?
Each plant should be dug up carefully and put in a big pot. After giving each plant plenty of water, set the geraniums in a window with natural or artificial light. Geraniums prefer a cool environment indoors. The ideal temperature range is between 60 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and a little bit lower at night. Plants need watering around every two weeks. By the end of winter, geraniums are likely to grow tall and lanky. Trim the plants back in March. Reduce the geraniums by a third to a half. Within a few days, the geraniums will start to grow once more, and by May, they should be beautiful specimens.
How do you overwinter geraniums as bare-root plants?
The geraniums should be carefully dug out before the first fall frost. Remove the plant’s roots’ soil by shaking them. After that, put one or two plants in a sizable paper bag and keep it dry and cool (45 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit). It might be appropriate to use an indoor porch or an unheated bedroom. Hanging the plants upside-down in a cool, dry area is an another (somewhat messier) option. Eventually, the leaves and the shoot tips will wither away.
Trim or prune each plant in March. Get rid of all the dried-out, lifeless stuff. Return to firm, green, living stem tissue through pruning. After pruning, pot the plants and give them plenty of water. Put the potted geraniums in a window with natural light or next to a light source. March pruning and potting of geraniums should result in lovely plants that may be put outside in May.
How are geraniums wintered in RHS?
Store them with just the plant’s crown—where the stems and roots come together—exposed in trays of sand, coir, or vermiculite. In a cold, frost-free greenhouse or conservatory, keep them simply damp. Plants grown in containers can be stored in their pots after being pruned.
When should overwintering geraniums be repotted?
It’s difficult to see all your lovely plants and labor go to waste after enjoying your geraniums outdoors all summer and fall! Here are 4 strategies for surviving the winter:
- Bring your geraniums indoors, and maintain them in a place with plenty of sunlight.
- Allow your potted geraniums to go dormant before storing them in the same pot.
- Your geraniums should be dug out and stored bare-root.
- Take cuttings and continue to grow them over the winter.
Let’s go over each choice in more depth. Bring your plants inside before frost, no matter the method. Whenever possible, I try to bring mine inside before the low temperature drops to 40°F (4.4C).
KEEP YOUR GERANIUMS GROWING INDOORS
Geraniums can be brought indoors and kept growing under grow lights or in a sunny window if you don’t want to let your plants go dormant.
The following are some crucial advice before bringing them back inside:
- Get rid of any dead flower stems, brown leaves, and any petals that may have fallen on the leaves.
- Check your plants for insects, and whether or not you find any, spray them with insecticidal soap (link to Amazon) as a preventative measure before bringing them inside.
- Dig your plants up, shake off any loose soil, and plant them into a pot if you need to move them from the ground to a container. Garden soil is too heavy to be used as a filler in the pot. Use a high-quality all-purpose potting mix; a suitable ratio is 3 parts Miracle Gro to 1 part perlite.
- You might want to cut your geranium back to around half of what it was.
- Give your plants the brightest window you can when you bring them home, or put them under a nice grow light.
- Increase light exposure if you notice that growth is sluggish during the winter. You can also pinch the growing ends off to promote branching and bushier growth.
LET YOUR POTTED GERANIUMS GO DORMANT AND STORE OVER WINTER
Since the majority of my geraniums are grown in pots, I always utilize this technique.
I simply move my geraniums to a cool, dark place for the winter whenever the temperatures drop.
They can be kept there until springtime temperatures start to warm up in a cool, dark basement or even a garage. Darkness and low temperatures are essential for dormancy. The optimal range is 7-13C/45-55F. If you can, keep it at or below 60°F.
You should cease watering the plant and let the foliage wither. Not to worry; your plant won’t perish. Simply put, you’re letting it to go dormant.
Geranium plants can endure dry spells because to their sturdy, succulent stems.
Clean up your plants after the foliage starts to fade and turn yellow. Your plants might even start to bloom. Cut them off even though it may be tempting to leave them in order to prevent squandering your plant’s energy.
You might need to water your pots twice or three times during the course of the winter to prevent the canes from dying and shriveling up, depending on your storage circumstances.
Your canes should remain lovely and firm, so keep an eye on them and water them as necessary to maintain the firmness of the stems.
When Should I Bring Geraniums Out of Dormancy?
I’ll restart my geraniums’ growth when the outside temperature is consistently over 40F.
Here are a few potted geraniums that had begun to thrive while they were dormant. This is commonplace.
I now removed the decaying leaves and blossoms (you could also choose to do it earlier).
I like to set the plants in a protected spot outside after cleaning them up (again, make sure that temperatures are consistently above 40F).
If your plant need a larger pot at this stage, repotting is an excellent idea. At this time, I also like to incorporate some Osmocote fertilizer (link to Amazon) into the soil.
If you’re keeping your plant in the same container that it was growing in the previous year, fertilizing now is extremely crucial. The majority of the nutrients will have been used up by the plant, therefore it’s critical to supplement with a quality container fertilizer like Osmocote.
Since the plants were recently taken out of storage, you can see in the shot above that the new growth is a lighter tint. Because the new growth is so delicate, avoid placing your geraniums in direct sunlight just yet to prevent leaf burn.
For a few days in total shadow outdoors, the new growth must harden off before gradually increasing its sun exposure.
DIG UP YOUR GERANIUMS AND STORE BARE-ROOT
Geraniums can also be stored by being dug up from the ground or even out of a pot and kept bare-root, without any soil at all.
If your geraniums were growing in the ground, this procedure is extremely helpful. Here are a few simple steps:
- Shake much or all of the soil off your plant after digging it up.
- Remove any weak or unhealthy canes, along with any brown leaves and all blossoms.
- For two to three days, let your plant air dry in a protected area.
- You currently have a few choices. As instructed in the previous techniques, put your plant in a brown paper bag, clip the top shut, and set it in a cold, dark spot. The plants can also just be hung upside down.
- Soak the roots in water for 1-2 hours a few times over the winter. At this point, remove any soft stems if you find any. At this point, remove any dead leaves as well.
- Put your plants back in pots in late March or early April so they can start growing again.
One year, I actually pulled several geranium plants out of the ground, shook off the soil, and placed some of them in a sizable pot before storing them in the garage for the winter. Many of them survived despite the fact that I completely neglected them until the spring.
TAKE CUTTINGS AND KEEP GERANIUMS GROWING
Finally, you may just take some cuttings from your outdoor plants and grow them indoors on a sunny windowsill if you don’t want to pursue any of the aforementioned approaches.
This is undoubtedly the most compact approach and is excellent if you simply lack the capacity to overwinter larger plants.
Just take the following actions:
- Use a sterile, sharp knife or pruning shears to prune the tips off of your geranium plants. Your cuttings should be approximately 3 to 4 inches long. Avoid making drastic cuts because there is a higher chance of failing.
- Eliminate all lower leaves (make sure the tip of your cuttings still have at least a couple leaves).
- You have two options at this point: dip the cutting in rooting hormone and plant it directly in the ground, or place it in water to root.
If you choose water propagation, you can pot up your cuttings once they develop roots that are approximately an inch tall and put them in a sunny window or under a grow light.
When using a cutting for soil propagation, first dip the cut end of the cutting into rooting hormone as shown in the picture below.
After that, plant them in a tiny pot with potting soil and perlite (I like to use a half and half mixture for rooting cuttings).
While the soil is undergoing rooted, keep it moist. To hasten the rooting process, you could also lay your rooting cuttings on top of a seedling heating pad. The bottom heat is fantastic!