Watering
Geraniums really are so easy to look after. They do not require watering once they have settled in unless it is a particularly dry period. Geraniums grown in pots will need regular watering.
Fertilising
On the feeding front, an autumn mulch after you have cut the leaves back will help improve the soil and boost flowering the following year.
Staking
Staking geraniums is unnecessary, apart from the occasional hoop to stop them spreading over a path in their general exuberance and willingness to please.
Cutting back geraniums
Geranium varieties that flower in late spring and early summer can be cut back which will give you a clump of fresh leaves for the rest of the season.
Other varieties will flower all season long but slow down on the flowering around mid-summer. This is where a general haircut pays dividends. Shear off all the leaves to ground level (or to where you can see some fresh new leaves have started to emerge). The plants will thank you for a water with seaweed fertilizer and a mulch of garden compost if you have some, and with luck you will have a fresh flush of flowers in a few weeks. I try to get this done just before I go on holiday so I don’t have to put up with the close-cropped look, and can come back to some lush new growth.
Another way to ensure a succession of flowering through the summer (if you are made of stern stuff) is to deploy the ‘Chelsea Chop’ in late May. Pick a few plants (perhaps those close to a path that are prone to flopping over) and just as they are about to flower you shear them back to half their height. This means that they will flower a few weeks after their neighbours, and will be stockier and stronger for it.
Propagating & dividing
Geraniums are also very easy to propagate. You might find that after two or three years they are beginning to crowd out their neighbours. Spring is the time to take a fork to the outside and remove a few new clumps around the edge that are rooting out of bounds.
After five years or so you might notice the centre is looking a little woody and less floriferous. Time now to dig out the whole clump and divide it up using the back-to-back fork technique. Discard any old woody sections from the middle and replant the fresh new clumps for better flowering next year. You might even have some spare sections to hand on to friends.
Taking geranium cuttings
Cuttings are easy to do and will reward you with better plants. Geraniums are one of the plants that actually have better growth and flower density from younger stock.
Take lots of cuttings from your geraniums in April and they'll be ready to be replanted in a month and be in full flower in three. This is the moment to multiply your geraniums so you have marvellous pots and fragrant leaves and velvety flowers for picking all through summer, autumn and into next winter.
Cut your geranium plant back by two-thirds, aiming to cut immediately above a lateral bud – or a node with a bud potential. These stem tips will form the basis of your cuttings.
If you want to keep the mother plant – and with geraniums I tend to keep the grandmothers and great-grandmothers – thin out all the spindly wimpy stems, leaving maybe seven or eight good ones to grow on. Then pot them on with a good surrounding of new, nutrient-rich multi-purpose potting compost.
Cut the best-looking geraniums cuttings into 4in sections, discarding any that don’t have plenty of shoots or nodes. With each section, strip almost all 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 geraniums cuttings to about a quarter their depth into a gritty mix of compost. I love using these square bulb trays for cuttings. They look good in them – as they sit and root – and you can fit lots in, spaced well and evenly apart. Put them on a heated base if you have one, or store them somewhere bright, but cool and keep their compost moist at all times.
Geranium cuttings should have rooted within a month and can then be potted on. If you want a great tumble of flowers and leaves, plant three to a large pot, they will quickly grow to appear as one bumper-sized plant, healthy, floriferous and handsome.
Overwintering
Most geranium varieties will die right back in the winter, so if you are a tidy gardener you can shear the dead leaves off and add them to the compost heap. They are bone hardy so don’t need any winter protection.
