How to Care for Geraniums to Have Them Flourishing on Your Balcony or Porch
Geraniums are the most popular decorative houseplants on balconies and porches, offering a lovely and diverse color palette and growing rich foliage. Here are some tips on how to care for geraniums to keep them healthy, vigorous and abundantly blooming.
Placing
Geraniums growing in pots have to be taken outside in spring, after there’s no more mildew risk, from mid-april or better yet from the beginning of May. They need plenty of light, but also to be in a cool place in order to bloom abundantly. That’s why the best areas to grow geraniums are mountain and cooler hilly areas. The ideal temperature for them during summer is between 70 and 75 degrees.
Geraniums grow well in garden soil, but also in a mixture of soil, peat and sand.
How to care for geraniums. Watering and fertilizing
Geraniums have to be watered 2 – 3 times a week, depending how quickly the soil dries. If they are kept in direct sunlight for several hours, then they should be watered daily, but the soil has to be allowed to dry. Don’t water them excessively and don’t let water in their plates, as it may lead to fungus attack and their roots rotting.
Like all the other plants, geraniums shouldn’t be watered during the day when there’s heat, but early in the morning and in the evening when it cools down. Avoid water falling on the flowers, because it may damage them.
If you want them to flourish, you should also apply some fertilizer. You can choose liquid fertilizer from the store or use banana peel, dried for ten minutes in the oven, minced well and sprinkled in the pots.
In mid-summer, when blooming is over, you should stop fertilizing and only water to avoid the soil drying completely. Towards the end of summer or at the beginning of fall, you can move your geraniums into other pots and trim them, cutting the side shoots, so that the plant grows stronger in spring.
Read also about overwintering geraniums and types of geraniums you can choose for your home.
Credits: paradisverde.ro, antenasatelor.ro, gradinamea.ro, renovat.ro
Photo credits: paradisverde.ro
