{"id":280,"date":"2011-11-21T05:00:10","date_gmt":"2011-11-21T13:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=280"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:34","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:34","slug":"foster-geraniums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/foster-geraniums\/","title":{"rendered":"Foster Geraniums"},"content":{"rendered":"

FOSTER GERANIUMS
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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>The houseplants that summered outside are now under cover once more.\u00a0 If they were sentient beings, they would probably be relieved.\u00a0 After all, they have been through a lot.\u00a0 Their tranquil summer vacation was interrupted dramatically when they were piled at random in the garage just before Hurricane Irene.\u00a0 Due to the laziness of the gardener, they suffered a second abrupt shift when they were rushed into the house in advance of the pre-Halloween snowstorm.\u00a0 Since then I have spent my free moments checking for hitchhiking bugs, cleaning pots, trimming back lush growth and positioning the tenants of my indoor plant areas so they receive maximum light.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are many plants resident in those indoor areas, but the vast majority are geraniums, or, as they are known to their botanist acquaintances, pelargoniums.\u00a0 Though only one has the traditional scarlet flowers, all are kin to the common geraniums that we all have been putting on our porches, terraces and front stoops for years.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mine are foster geraniums, in my care because my daughter, who acquired and loves them, is elsewhere, attending graduate school.\u00a0 Several years ago she fell head over heels in love with all types of pelargoniums.\u00a0 Every garden center trip became a hunt to find colors or forms that we didn’t already cultivate.\u00a0 As time went on, she branched out into ivy-leafed, scented and regal or Martha Washington forms.\u00a0 We have double-flowered geraniums, fancy-leafed types and varieties in every color of the geranium rainbow.\u00a0 We own Paul Bunyan-esque specimens, scrawny plants and everything in between.\u00a0 I know them all very well, because I tend to their needs every day.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Right now they are re-acclimating themselves to their winter quarters and shedding leaves and blossoms in response to reduced light.\u00a0 Veterans of the houseplant wars know that all houseplants that summer outside go through this, especially those, like geraniums, that prefer full sunlight.\u00a0 My daughter’s plants were so thoroughly spoiled that they generally act as if they have been forcibly removed from the Riviera to a gulag in Siberia.\u00a0 In the old days, I would have put them in south-facing windows and allowed the sulking to happen.\u00a0 I was Darwinian in my approach then, knowing that most would survive the winter, even if they looked pale and sickly by March.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now everything has changed because I have to face my daughter’s wrath if the geranium children are not well cared for.\u00a0 We have one expensive specialty grow light, but unless we want to winter the geraniums in the cellar, we do not have a plant area with a configuration that can accommodate mounted fluorescent tubes or other, more effective supplemental lights.\u00a0 My daughter dealt with the situation by experimenting, and found that inexpensive, adjustable, clip-on reading lights from the big-box store can provide effective supplemental light.\u00a0 The small lamps feature easily replaceable sixty watt bulbs and adjustable “necks.”\u009d\u00a0 We clip them to the plant stands, windowsills or ledges in unobtrusive places and intersperse them throughout the plant area.\u00a0 The necessary extension cords are camouflaged as thoroughly as possible, and positioned so that they do not get watered when the geraniums do.\u00a0 The lights aren’t needed all the time, but we turn them on during dark winter days and as dusk sets in.\u00a0 Since this happens at about 4 pm in the winter, the lights are on for some part of each day.\u00a0 Those who are not at home when darkness falls could duplicate the situation with lights on timers.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This approach, plus a moderate amount of clipping and grooming, has kept the geranium menagerie in good health for the last two winters.\u00a0 We have even had blooms, which would not have been there without the supplemental lights.\u00a0 Some showy varieties, like the fancy-leafed ‘Mrs. Pollack’, with red, green and yellow foliage, lose some of their vibrant summer leaf color, but it returns quickly in the spring.\u00a0 Scented-leaf varieties always smell more fragrant in the warmth of outdoor sunshine, but if you rub the leaves, the odor of roses or nutmeg or lemon still emanates from then.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Eventually many of the traditional zonal geraniums get woody, with thicker stems and fewer flowers.\u00a0 This can be prevented to some extent, by pruning the plants by one half after they bloom, which encourages new growth and pruning back hard from time to time.\u00a0 However, if you have a well-loved geranium that is showing signs of age you can also take cuttings and propagate it.\u00a0 To do this, cut a young shoot about six inches long, making sure that it has a few leaves.\u00a0 Cut off any flowers and buds, as well as the lower leaves, and insert the shoot in a pot of moist potting mix.\u00a0 Place in indirect light and keep slightly damp.\u00a0 The cutting should start rooting in anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.\u00a0 When new top growth appears, the young plant is ready to be potted up and placed in a sunny location.\u00a0 You can also root multiple cuttings in a single pot; just make sure they don’t touch each other.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Next week the moment of truth will come.\u00a0 My daughter will arrive home to spend some quality time with her parents and her geraniums–not necessarily in that order.\u00a0 I had better rush out and buy another extension cord so that I can set up the last of the clip on lights.\u00a0 It is almost show time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FOSTER GERANIUMS \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The houseplants that summered outside are now under cover once more.\u00a0 If they were sentient beings, they would probably be relieved.\u00a0 After all, they have been through a lot.\u00a0 Their tranquil summer vacation was interrupted dramatically when they were piled at random in the garage just before Hurricane Irene.\u00a0 Due to the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1511,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/1511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}