Pelargoniums should not be confused with hardy geraniums. You might be wondering what makes a geranium different from a pelargonium. Similar to some siblings, they are both members of the same plant family, but they could not be more unlike.
Pelargoniums cannot withstand frost, while hardy geraniums can. Pelargoniums are usually treated as annuals and replanted each year, but true hardy geraniums are perennials that grow back every year. Pelargoniums die in the winter.
Prune your Hardy Geraniums
Your sturdy geraniums will look their best and promote new growth if you prune them properly. By correctly pruning your hardy geraniums after the blooming season, you can encourage repeat blooming. The majority of geraniums can be cut back twice in a single season, which allows them to bloom at least three times.
When to Prune
Your hardy geraniums should be pruned in accordance with the season you are in. Rozanne will require various cuts in the spring, summer, and fall. To maintain your blooms rich and healthy, mark your calendar and adhere to our seasonal trimming recommendations.
What tools you need
Your geraniums may be pruned fairly easily. All you’ll need is the ability to prune, a pair of sharp pruners, your favorite mulch, and your favorite gardening gloves. Watch this video to learn more about pruning strategies in detail.
How to prune
You shouldn’t be concerned that pruning your flower’s back will harm her. The majority of hardy geraniums require trimming to promote new growth and prevent them from encroaching upon other plants.
Trim the plant back to within a few inches of the ground or to about an inch above the main stem once the flowering is completed or you find old growth. Remove any brown stems or yellow leaves after that by going inside.
Soon after trimming, more leaves will start to appear. Some resilient geraniums even have the ability to blossom again. Maintaining correct pruning on your plants encourages new development and keeps them from spilling out throughout your landscape.
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Can you prune wild geranium?
Cut back the entire plant to 3 or 4 inches tall once wild geraniums have finished their initial flowering show in late spring or early summer to reveal the little crown of leaves tucked in the lower leaf stems. If you want seeds to form and disperse in a newly planted area, do not cut down the flower stems or entire plants. The seeds will spontaneously disperse and grow additional plants the following spring. Trimming the old flower stems from established gardens prevents weedy seedlings from spreading uninvitedly.
Pruning Geraniums After Winter Dormancy
The optimum time to prune geraniums is in the early spring if you put them into dormancy for the winter or if you live in a region where they lose some of their leaves over the winter.
Take off all of the geranium’s brown and dead leaves. After that, remove any diseased stems. Squeezing a healthy geranium stem will feel firm. Cut down the geranium plant by one-third, paying particular attention to stems that have begun to turn woody if you want a less woody and lanky plant.
Cutting Back Geraniums That are Wintered Alive
The best time to prune geraniums is in late fall or right before you bring them inside, if you intend to bring them indoors. If you do not put your geraniums into dormancy for the winter and they remain green in the ground or in containers year round.
Trim the geranium plant back by one-third to one-half, paying special attention to lanky or woody stems.
How to Pinch Geraniums
In order to make the plant grow more bushy and compact, geraniums are sometimes pruned. You can pinch either newly purchased bedding geranium plants or geraniums that have been overwintered. Pinching of geraniums begins in the spring.
When a stem on a geranium plant reaches a few inches (7.5–10 cm), cut off 1/4–1/2 inch (0.5–1.5 cm) of the stem with a sharp pair of scissors, or even with your fingers. Repeat over all stems. The geranium will be forced to produce two new stems off of the original stem as a result, which will result in a bushier, fuller plant. If you prefer, you can keep pinching geraniums all throughout spring.
Geranium pruning is simple and improves the appearance of your plant. You may enjoy your geraniums more now that you know how to prune geranium plants.
When do you reduce your geranium planting?
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.
Does wild geranium require deadheading?
For shady to full sun color, the wild spotted geranium is hard to match. In medium, well-drained soil, this perennial expands contentedly but not forcefully. Fall brings beautiful crimson and orange hues to the leaves. Zones 5 to 9 are suitable for planting. For planting in gardens next to trees, wild geranium is a fantastic option.
Wild geranium will allow you to explore your wild side. This perennial bloomer’s botanical name is Geranium maculatum. Numerous other names, such as alum root, wild cranesbill, spotted geranium, and wood geranium, are also commonly used to refer to it. Whatever name you give it, this natural wildflower enhances the beauty of any setting.
Eastern North America is home to the wild geranium, which can be found growing from Southern Ontario to Georgia and farther west to eastern Oklahoma and the Dakotas. Geranium maculatum is a resilient plant that adapts to a variety of growth environments and is hardy in Zones 3 to 8. Wild geranium can be found in woodlands and in shaded roadside areas in its natural habitat. It grows well in full sun to partial shade in the backyard garden.
Give wild geraniums rich, humusy soil that is full of fallen, decaying leaves, similar to the kind you’d find in a woodland. When there is adequate moisture, plants grow the fastest. Give wild geranium a location with more sun and lots of water for the finest blooms. Lack of water and too much sun cause yellow leaves to drop early. Plants will retain their leaves throughout the season if they receive enough moisture. If not, plants have a tendency to hibernate.
Late spring to early summer, for a duration of six to seven weeks, sees the appearance of flowers on wild geranium plants. When temperatures remain on the chilly side, the blossoming window expands. Flowers open facing upward and appear in loose clusters above the dark green, lobed leaves.
The majority of the time, blooms are lilac or pink in color, but rarely you’ll come across a plant with dark purple or even white blossoms. Darker colored lines on the petals serve as nectar markers for pollination insects. A great plant for luring pollinators, such as native bees, syrphid flies, bumblebees, and honeybees, is the wild geranium.
The wild geranium doesn’t require deadheading because it only blooms once every growing season. Seed capsules start to form around a month after the plant blooms, giving it the common name cranesbill geranium. The seed capsule features a base and a lengthy center portion. With its large beak, the entire thing resembles a crane head. The word “geranium” literally means “crane” in Greek. The capsules explode when the seeds are ripe, launching the seeds 10 to 30 feet.
Geranium in the wild grows in groups. When it’s content, it easily naturalizes but it’s not obtrusive. Typically, plants reach heights of 18 to 24 inches and widths of 12 to 18 inches. Pick more wildflowers to thrive beside wild geranium. The variegated solomon’s seal, ferns, celandine poppies, shooting stars, trilliums, columbines, and woodland phlox make for good companions.
What are some uses for wild geraniums?
A perennial herbaceous plant, Geranium maculatum is native to deciduous woodlands in eastern North America’s zones 3 to 8, including southern Ontario, Georgia, western Oklahoma, and the eastern part of the Dakotas. Except for a few northern counties, it can be found throughout much of Wisconsin. With its larger blossoms than the other species, the wild geranium is the most showy of the native geraniums. This clump-forming plant in the geranium family (Geraniaceae), also known as alum root, alum bloom, cranesbill, spotted cranesbill, wild cranesbill, spotted geranium, wood geranium, and other local colloquial names, is typically fairly prevalent in dense clusters in natural woodland openings.
These colonies are made up of collections of durable clones that originated from distinct plants. It rarely appears in disturbed regions and is a weak colonizer. Native Americans utilized G. maculatum as a medicine to cure open wounds and sores as well as diarrhea.
The flowering stems of plants emerge from dense, horizontal rhizomes with a loose cluster of basal leaves. They grow into a mound of 12-28-inch-tall and 12- to 18-inch-wide dark green foliage.
The long, white-haired petioles bearing the palmately lobed basal leaves emerge in the spring. Although occasionally two of the lobes are severely cleft enough to appear as seven lobes, each broad leaf up to 6 inches across typically contains five deep lobes. The entire leaf margin is unevenly and coarsely serrated or cleft. While the top leaf surface is coated in fine white hairs, the lower leaf surface contains coarse white hairs similar to those on the petiole.
In late spring to early summer, wild geranium blooms for about a month (occasionally longer in milder conditions). The winter bud at the terminals of the rhizomes contains flower buds that were established the previous year. The opposing, short-stalked stem leaves on each erect, mainly unbranched flower stem are identical to, but smaller than, the basal leaves, typically with just three lobes. The upright blooms are produced in loose clusters of two to five at the apex of hairy stems (a corymb or floppy umbel). A single pistil with five carpels is surrounded by a single flower that is 1-11/2 inches diameter, five rounded petals, five green sepals, and ten yellow stamens. The petals’ fine, somewhat darker-colored lines that run along their length serve as nectar guides, and they are often rose-pink to lavender in color, however they can occasionally be darker purple or even white. The most frequent pollinators are honeybees, bumblebees, numerous varieties of local solitary bees, and syrphid flies, however ants and beetles frequently visit the flowers.
Three to five weeks after blossoming, unique fruit capsules appear. Each is made up of five basal cells, each bearing one seed with a reticulated surface, and a tall, central column that resembles the beak of a crane.
When this dehiscent fruit is ready, the carpels twist upward and backward and spring open, ejecting the seeds 10–30 feet from the mother plant. After the seeds have ripened in the summer, the plants may begin to become dormant. In ideal circumstances, leaves will stay green all season long, but if the soil dries up, they may turn yellow or lay dormant for the summer.
Wild geranium can be grown as an ornamental plant in gardens even though it is a native to our region. For the optimum growth, plant it in rich soil with lots of organic matter, in full sun or moderate shade, and with lots of moisture. The more sun a plant gets, the more flowers it produces. Under ideal growing conditions, this plant will naturalize, although it is never invasive. It doesn’t need a lot of maintenance. Since plants typically do not repeat bloom, deadheading is not advised.
After flowering, the foliage can be softly shaped and shorn back. There aren’t many pests that affect this plant, however rust, leaf spot, and aphid infestations are all possible. Flowers will be eaten by deer (and occasionally the foliage).
Use G. maculatum in open woodland gardens, native plant gardens, and shady border areas. It can be gathered in a bulk to cover the ground. It frequently grows alongside bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora), bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), false Solomon’s seal (Smilacina racemosa), Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum spp. ), ferns, Trillium grandiflorum, common mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum), and forest phlox in its natural habitat (Phlox divaricata). It pairs nicely in gardens with these and other native plants found in open woods as well as with exotic ornamentals like violets, goat’s beard, columbine, foam flowers, and various species of aquilegia and tiarella.
There are a few G. maculatum cultivars available:
- White blooms are found on “Album.”
- ‘Elizabeth Ann’ features blue-lavender blooms and dark brown leaves.
- A variety called “Espresso” has reddish-brown foliage and pale pink blooms.
Wild geranium can be propagated from seed or by dividing the rhizomes. Early spring or late fall are good times to divide roots by cutting them at right angles. You can buy seed or gather it naturally. The dehiscent fruits should be harvested before splitting open (about a month after flowering, as they start to darken), and they should be placed in a paper bag to retain the seeds until the fruits rupture open. To germinate, seed must be stratified; the longer the cold time, the higher the germination rate. Fall is the best time to sow outdoors because there is no need for artificial stratification. Young plants often bloom in their second or third year in the wild, but when planted in a garden, they frequently do so in the first year. University of Wisconsin-Madison student Susan Mahr
How are wild geraniums managed?
Prevention: Because glossy geranium seeds can be transported on footwear and automobiles, extra care should be taken to wash off after entering places where this plant is present. Keep an eye out for new areas of this plant when it is in bloom (from April to July). Make sure to check all new plantings for shiny geranium, especially those with plants bought from areas with an infestation, as this weed has been discovered hitchhiking in pots of other plants bought from nurseries.
Small patches: Before they go to seed, plants can be carefully hand-pulled or dug out. Just be sure to remove as much root and stem as you can to keep the plants from sprouting again. To avoid spreading it further, place all plant material in rubbish bags rather than compost.
Larger patches: To control larger areas, cover them with a thick layer of mulch or, for best results, cover them first with cardboard before adding another layer of mulch made of wood chips. Plants can be sprayed with a broadleaf herbicide like triclopyr before flowering (late March to April) if you have a place where herbicides can be utilized (e.g. Brush B Gon). A non-selective herbicide like glyphosate (found in Roundup, for example) can be used, however it kills grass and may cause a flush of new weed seedlings after application. For site-specific control information, please refer to the herbicide labels. For more information on herbicide use, consult the PNW Weed Management Handbook. Follow the herbicide label on the product you are using and all local and state laws governing the use of herbicides. Burning multiple times throughout each growing season using a propane-powered burning tool is another option to spraying for large sites (if burning is allowed in your location). Whatever approach you use, make sure to follow up for several years to assure eradication success and seed bank depletion.