Topic: Help - What do I do with flowering geraniiums from 'summer pots'?

[Rosa_Mundi]

As Lottie says, when really dry, and then only a tiny amount at a time, preferably well away from the stems. Another way you could help insulate them would be to mix perlite into the compost you plant them up in if you have it - but don't worry if you haven't.

[Hot_Potato]

I've got Vermiculite - presume it's the same sort of thing?

[Rosa_Mundi]

That would have a similar effect and do fine. You do realize you'll be overrun with plants next year, don't you? ;D

[Hot_Potato]

RosaM......why???

what do they get up to in the pots then??  ;)

[Hot_Potato]

well it's done - I chose half a dozen of the strongest and tidiest looking plants taken from my summer 'pots' and put them altogether into one large black pot, holes drilled in bottom with plenty of drainage stones then equal parts of compost & vermiculite....didn't water them cos the compost was very damp!...maybe I should have done but was afraid of them getting too wet  :-\.....

have sat the pot into 2 plastic trays which stands on some metal staging way off the ground in the unheated greenhouse......

now it's up to them!!  ;) and of course, the weather!

if it gets really cold, as I keep hearing it will, can always put a bubble-wrap jacket around them  :)

[HO]

I feel a bit of a philistine after reading all the sensible ways to look after geraniums through the winter. All I do is pull them out of the ground and chuck them straight into a black bin liner. I usually stash about 40 plants in three full bin liners. I then just leave then somewhere, shed, under trees or wherever they drop. If outside they may get an old blanket thrown over them. I actually buried them all (not in bin liners) one year after reading an old gardening book. In the bin liners they go mouldy, the tops rot off and you think you've really done it this time. Just cut them back in the spring. I lump them all in a few big trays, usually in the greenhouse or frame,  to keep an eye on them. 99% and all of the buried ones survive and shoot out.  Every year I think that I ought to do it properly but never seem to get round to it...

[Hot_Potato]

Corrrr.....wish I'd known all that before!!!

wouldn't have been worrying my socks off about how to look after my plants......

probably be sods law that after all this wonderful advice and careful 'coddling' the blasted things will all die on me  ???

[daisymay]

blimey! me too! have been looking after the plant we are babysitting for a friend in the greenhouse like it is a child! go out and check on it all the time etc..