Friday, March 16, 2007

Pink Geranium

I have a real fondness for geraniums, have since the first batch I had raised from seed back in high school. When we were shopping for garden seeds the other day, this beautiful specimen came home with us ;o)


Click to enlarge - you can even see the little hairs on the stems in this picture.




Geraniums are one of those plants that have wonderful smelling leaves as well as flowers. They are not terribly expensive, and can be raised from seed in a moist, covered container starting in January or February. They can do well inside as a houseplant with just some good sunlight and light watering. Sometimes they can have a tendency to overflower - using up their energies all at once, but the extra flower stems can be gently pruned back without harming the plant. It is best to allow only a few flower clusters to bloom at once unless you have a very good supply of fertilized soil to the plant.

The type of Geraniums you would find being sold at plant stores are also called 'Pelargonium', to determine them from wilder cousins. Here is a wonderful site with many beautiful pictures of different breeds of geraniums. I think most of these were grown and photographed by just one guy. It's apparent some people REALLY love geraniums more than I do, but the pictures are gorgeous. Also - be sure to check out his greenhouse picture just for the sheer magnitude of it.


This one in particular looks like a little bonsai tree!
It's going to need some care and a tiny bit of pruning here and there,
but it should live for up to a year or more, producing pretty flowers and outgrowing this pot at least once.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The geraniums went to town on our hillside last year, but I think they did not like the freeze. They look pathetic. Hopefully they'll bounce back in Spring!

Geraniums are just such a hardy happy plant.

Chris said...

Flowering things... ahhh... I'm pretty sure May would destroy them if I tried to grow them.

Jeanne said...

Hmmm....Well, how upsetting that once again, everyplace else is heading for spring far ahead of us. Why do I live here?