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DATE : 15 September, 2022 by Christina TAG: Gardening Advice
15
Sep
Loved by bees and hoverflies and I've often seen Butterflies on them too.
I enjoy having cranesbill geraniums in the garden as they cover a wide area and give ground cover. Bees enjoy their nectar and the birds love hunting for bugs that hide underneath them. They work really well under shrubs and trees and last for years.
They usually like part shade (hardy) or full sun (alpine), but they do suffer in my garden in Suffolk if they aren't watered at least every other week when it's really hot weather, they do tend to prefer moist but well drained soil, but aren't overly fussy about soil types. They have no problem surviving the rain shadow of walls, shrubs or trees.
Geraniums can be planted in the spring, from March to May, giving them time to establish roots before summer. They can also be planted in the autumn from September to October while the soil is still warm, helping them to create a good root system before winter sets in.
When you get your geraniums home stand the pots in a bucket of water for around 20 minutes while you prepare the garden, dig a hole a little bigger than the pot and mix in a bit of garden compost at the bottom of the hole. Fill the hole with water and let it drain away. Turn the plant out of it's pot, tease out the roots and place it into the hole, back fill with soil and firm the soil around it. Give it another water, and water during dry periods if planted in spring.
Use a soil-based compost, enriched with a bit of garden compost. When grown in pots geraniums will need a lot of water.
They shouldn't need watering unless it is a particularly dry period. In my garden in Suffolk I have to water my geraniums every other week when it's particularly hot. The ones that are in the shade don't need any water throughout the year.
I use my home compost to mulch in autumn. This should be enough to improve the soil and boost flowering the following year. But they really don't need the soil to be improved so you can skip this if you wish.
Geraniums that flower in late spring (May) and early summer (June) can be cut back which will give you fresh new leaves and some flowers for the rest of the season.
Other varieties flower all season but flowering slows down around mid-summer. These varieties can be cut down to ground level, or to the fresh new leaves. These like a seaweed fertiliser and a mulch of garden compost. This should bring on a flush of new flowers in a few weeks.
If you want some of your geraniums to flower later than others. You could do the 'Chelsea Chop' in late May (it's called the Chelsea Chop as it happens when the Chelsea Flower Show is on). Just as they are about to flower shear some of your plants back to half their height. This will delay flowering and create a stockier and stronger plant.
If you don't cut your plants back after flowering they will create seeds and can self seed in your soil. You can dig the seedlings up and move them to where you want them.
These are quite an easy plant to propagate if dividing.
After three years cranesbill geraniums can become crowded and take up space from other plants. Spring (March - May) is the time to dig up and divide geraniums, making sure each new plant you create has enough root stock.
At about five years the plants become woody, in spring dig the entire plant up, divide and compost all the woody parts. All the new plants will create a better show of leaves and flowers.
Divide the plants using the back to back fork technique (place two forks into the plant, forks should be back to back, apply pressure to both forks that moves them apart). This method teases the roots apart giving you new plants. Replant the new clumps which will flower really well in the following year. If you have any spare you could give them to friends, family or neighbours.
I found out by accident that you can take cuttings from geraniums, I was lifting a clump and broke a bit off and just stuck it into a pot to see what would happen. Even though it was the wrong time of year for cuttings, it did grow and produced a new plant.
Geraniums have better growth and flowering density from younger stock, so it's well worth taking cuttings.
April is the best time to take lots of cuttings. They will be ready to be replanted after a month and will start flowering in three months.
Take the best looking geranium shoots and nodes, cutting them into 4 inch sections, discarding any that don't have plenty of shoots or nodes. Strip away almost all of the leaves from the stem, leaving only the top pair. Also pinch out any tips that look like they might develop into flowering shoots.
Insert the geranium cuttings (about a quarter their depth) into a gritty mix of compost. Store them somewhere bright, but cool and keep their compost moist at all times.
It should only take them a month to root at which point you can pot them on.
Most geranium varieties will die right back in the winter. I prefer not to remove the dead leaves and let nature take care of them for me, giving insects somewhere to over winter which in turn creates more food for the birds. However, if you are a tidy gardener, you can remove the dead leaves and add them to your compost heap. They do not need winter protection.
The plant has few problems and can shake most pests and diseases off.
Geranium sawfly (Ametastegia Carpini) - do an image search in Google if you want to see what this little beauty looks like.
I get sawflies in my garden and they rarely cause much damage. It's a 12mm long greyish green caterpillar and will create holes in the foliage as it munches away in late spring. Turn the leaf over to see them, I'm into wildlife so I leave them be and the birds will pick them off and eat them. However, you can squash them if you must, but a sawfly isn't going to cause that much of a problem in a garden setting, so only intervene if you have an infestation that is destroying the plant.
Sawfly pupate in the soil, so you could rake the soil over to expose them giving the birds something to eat.
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