When we started this Blog, I mentioned how you can garden year round. For years now, I have overwintered the annual Geranium by taking cuttings at year end and grwoing them under lights in the basement. Another method of keeping your geraniums is to remove all of the earth from the roots in the Fall and then to hang the plant upside down in a cool place. I decided to do this for the first time this year.
In October, I took the plants out of the pots, removed the soil,trimmed of some of the branches and threw them into a box in the furnce room in preparation for hanging them up in the cold cellar. The other day as I planned for Tuesdays Horticultural Therapy session, I happened to glance in the box. In the past several months, the plants without water or soil had actually produced some leaves and even some sickly looking flowers. These geraniums are determined to survive so who am I to argue. The plants have been potted up, trimmed and placed under lights to see what will happen.
If you don't want to take cuttings or to go through the process of storing the plants in the cold cellar, you could always start some from seed. A colleague tells me that the geraniums are the most amazing plant to start from seed as every seed germinates. I couldn't believe that last year so I tried it. I took four seed packets (10 seeds to a package) and potted them up. I ended up with 40 plants to share with friends.
Geraniums are forgiving too as you can go for days without watering them. They might look a little wimpy, but they perk up almost immediately. Try them!
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