To keep geraniums looking their best, it’s best to understand how to trim them using three different methods. Despite the ease with which geraniums can be multiplied, it is important to keep in mind that by trimming your mature geraniums, you can help them survive and look their best. In addition to trimming your geraniums, you can keep them in the greenhouse to reduce stress and illness.
Remember that geraniums can be damaged by extremes of temperature. For year-round care and help the plant recover from damaged portions, you can utilize the procedures outlined below. But if you live in an area with extreme weather conditions, a greenhouse would be the best place to keep them.
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Comprehensive Guide For Cutting Geraniums
Method #1. Cutting back
Cutting down your geraniums is a good idea in many situations. Keep in mind that this is not a mild trim, therefore timing is critical to guarantee a healthy recovery. Geraniums should be pruned to a tidy shape before being moved into the greenhouse, according to seasoned gardeners.
If you’re cultivating perennial geraniums, the first is a good time to keep in mind. Remove geraniums’ leggy and woody stems in order to prune them. Depending on the amount of woody growth, you may have to reduce the plant’s size by half.
Method #2. Pruning
Cutting back geraniums that remain green all year round in the fall is a good idea. In contrast, geraniums that die back in the winter should be pruned at the beginning of spring. Dormancy and overwintering in the greenhouse are also necessary for these plants.
Remove any discolored or dead leaves and cut any unhealthy stalks. Woody and leggy growths can be examples. Additionally, you may have to cut back as much as a third of the plant.
Method #3. Pinching
The final technique for geraniums that you must master is pinching. Despite the fact that pinching geraniums isn’t the best technique to trim them, it’s still a good practice to keep in mind. New plants, whether they’ve just been placed in bedding or have just returned from overwintering, require this step.
Pinch at the end of a stem that is about half an inch long in spring. As soon as you discover your plant has grown to a height of around three inches, you may also use scissors to cut the ends. To make a bushier and more compact geranium, do this at the ends of all of the stems.
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Since new stems will sprout from the original ones if you pinch throughout spring, this approach works. Because of this, you’ll end up with a more aesthetically pleasing plant. When using any of these three methods, it is imperative that you use sharp and hygienic equipment to prevent disease transmission and guarantee that you get a proper cut every time.
Can You Deadhead Geraniums?
When it comes to flowering plants, deadheading is a good idea for geraniums. If you want to prevent injuring your plant, take your time and be cautious when doing this. Please remove the flowers once they have faded and wilted.
When you detect wilted blooms, you can continue deadheading throughout the blooming season. This will not only keep your plant looking neat, but it will also encourage new blooms and lengthen the season by removing the dead blossoms. It would be easier for your plant to concentrate its energy on bloom formation if you eliminate the dead blossoms.
To remove the entire stem, simply cut it off at its base. A quarter-inch above the main stem, or snap it downward, is a good place to cut it off. A sharp and sterile tool is preferable to avoid injuring the plant and disrupting its blossoming, though.
How To Increase Branching Of Geraniums
Using Florel or ethephon is recommended by the University of Massachusetts Amherst for increasing geranium branching. Use Florel four weeks before to selling them to induce more flower stalk production in geranium varieties that don’t normally do so. This will result in better-looking plants.
In general, a dose of 350-500 ppm is considered safe, although it should never be used too late in the cycle. Florel, on the other hand, can result in shorter internodes and smaller leaves, therefore careful application is essential. Nonetheless, it’s a good idea to keep this in mind, especially if you’re a commercial geranium grower.
How to Trim Geraniums So They Bloom Again
In U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 10 and 11, geraniums (Pelargonium spp.) are perennials, but they are most commonly planted as summer annuals. Ambitious gardeners pull out their geraniums and place them in a pot in front of a bright window to survive the winter. Before bringing plants into the house, it’s a good idea to trim back any overgrown stems. This will save room and allow the plants to re-grow gently during the winter. Other than that, during the spring and fall months when the plants are outside, occasional pruning of the tips and deadheading of old flowers helps to maintain a dense mound of plants that are constantly blooming.
1. Pinch the Stem Tips
The Herb Society of America recommends pinching the geranium’s stem tips when it has three to four pairs of leaves. A sharp pruner or your fingers can be used to pinch, depending on how confident and experienced you are in cultivating plants. Allow latent buds at the base of the leaves to sprout and expand into branches by snipping off the growing tip.
2. Repeat Stem-Tip Pinching
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Pinching stem tips at eight-week intervals throughout the growing season is a good practice. A consistent mound can be achieved by only pinching the geranium plant’s leggiest branches. For example, if the branch is growing a lot of flowers at the planned pinching period, overtake it and pinch it again.
3. Deadhead Spent Flowers
After the flower petals have shriveled or fallen off, throw away the spent blooms. This is known as deadheading, and it encourages plants to produce more blossoms on a regular basis. During the growing season, repeat this procedure every three to seven days. With pruners or scissors, snip the flower stem at the base where it connects to the main branch of the plant. Alternatively, you can use your hands to snap the flower stem, but be careful not to tear the branch as a whole.
4. Prepare to Overwinter the Plant
The University of Minnesota Extension advises cutting back geranium leggy shoots into the plant’s somewhat wood-like branch roots. Just before the first fall frost, or in mid-to-late spring, if you want the entire plant to renew in the summertime, this is the only time to accomplish this. In order to avoid crushing or twisting tears in the pruning cut, the Herb Society of America recommends that you use a razor-sharp pruning blade. Slices that have been cleaned and sanitized are less prone to harbor bacteria or decay.
5. Dry the Wound
5 minutes after cutting the stem, use a clean cotton swab to remove the bleeding sap from the branches. As a result, a protective callus forms over the wound, preventing airborne pathogens like viruses, bacteria, and fungal spores from infecting it.
Things You Will Need
- Pruners for the hands (secateurs)
- Swabs made from cotton
- Sanitizing Pruning Shears with Alcohol
Tip
Spray the cutting blades with rubbing alcohol after each cut if you’re trimming a lot of different plants. Sterilizing the blades in this manner helps to keep infections from spreading unintentionally to other parts of the plant.
Warning
Avoid cutting into totally hard, woody branch bases when doing heavy pruning to move plants indoors for the winter or to rejuvenate them in the spring, as regrowth may not be swift, if at all. Make your cuts about 6 to 10 inches away from the woody main stem that emerges from the soil, where the branches are a little softer and partially green to light brown colored.
Conclusion
The process of cultivating geraniums is pretty straightforward, but there are a number of tactics that you must master in order to achieve the best results. To begin, learn three different ways to cut geraniums. Pruning at the beginning of spring is another option if you have geraniums that die in the winter and need to be replanted in the fall.
Pinching the tips of geranium branches, whether you’ve just finished overwintering them or are starting from scratch, will promote bushier growth. As an option, you can also employ ethephon before selling plants that have few branches. Last but not least, you may shorten the flowering season and keep your geraniums looking neat by removing withered blooms.
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