Getting Ready for Spring 2010, Part III

Gardening advice comes in unusual places.  Yesterday while I was attending an educational conference in Baltimore and sharing lunch with a group of technology colleagues, my friend Lynn suggested that I drag my geranium containers into a corner of the garage and just let them be for the winter.  She has done this for several years and has found that once cut back and fertilized in the spring, the plants grow back nicely.

This  reminds me of my grandmother’s practice of pulling up the geraniums, cutting them back, shaking off the dirt from the roots, putting a brown bag over the roots, and letting them hang from a pipe or railing in a basement or garage during the winter.  She always replanted them in small pots and watered them beginning in March, and by May she had spectacular plants.  Grandma always found that most rebloomed in the spring.  I tried this one year, but only about half of the geraniums bloomed.

So we are giving the garage a try for spring ’10, though one of the links below suggests also putting bags over them to block the light for most of the winter. Thanks Lynn!

• Geranium winter storage tips @ Veseys Information for Gardeners
• Overwintering geraniums @ About.com