Although geraniums (botanical name “Pelargoniums”) are hardy plants that are easy to care for, you need to take special care of them during the winter so that they bloom beautifully in the summer season.
How to keep geraniums in pots during the winter?
Geraniums are magnificent perennial and colorful plants that adorn gardens , but also terraces and balconies. In winter, proper care is important to help them thrive in spring. There are several ways to overwinter geraniums. Using newspaper, a cardboard box, a paper bag, or a sunny windowsill, you can easily store them. Protected in this way, these flowers will be able to retain their freshness and bloom abundantly during the warm season.
A simple change of position will do the trick. Move them to a room where it is quite cool (around 10°C) but sufficiently lit. If you have enough space, take your pots home and place them on a medium-sized windowsill. Make sure the living conditions are optimal: each pot of geraniums should benefit from the same light and water them every 3 or 4 weeks.
Little advice for safe wintering
Have you ever considered overwintering your plants in a paper bag? This method is quite unknown, but the results are very surprising. As a bonus, your geraniums will take up less space since this trick requires removing them from their pots. Once wrapped and secured in the paper bag, you should place them in a cool, but not necessarily sunny, room. Your flowers can thus overwinter in the garage or basement (the temperature should be between 5 and 10°C). Instead of a paper bag, you can use a cardboard box. As for maintenance, simply put the roots in water several times during the winter and check for the presence of mold.
NB : it is better to wrap the roots so that they are not exposed and do not dry out.
How to overwinter pelargonium seedlings?
As stated, geranium is a subtropical flowering plant that does not tolerate very cold temperatures and does not tolerate frost at all. But in fact, you have a choice: either you opt for full wintering where your plants will be dormant, or you plant seedlings indoors.
Here’s how to do it: Cut the shoots in the fall. Plant them one by one in pots where they will take root and show their first shoots in spring. Alternatively, you can also put the sprouts in a container of water, which you will place on the windowsill in a warm room. Be sure to replace the water weekly. Once the seedlings take root, you can plant them in the ground in early spring, where they will begin to bloom.