Cutting those geraniums down to size

Many of the plants that I inherited from my mother are geraniums. But they were lanky — with long featureless stems leading to the odd flower or leaf at the top. They looked like creatures from a planet with low gravity.

Fortunately, my mother-in-law knows about this kind of thing, and so when she came to lunch I persuaded her to get to work with the secateurs while I filled some spare pots with my nutritious compost.

We soon had a collection of new pots with the cut stems she had designated as new plants, and a much more respectable collection of the original plants with their dead leaves and flowers removed.

My mother-in-law told me to water the pots thoroughly but then to leave them, rather than constantly rewatering them while the new plants get established. I don’t know why, but perhaps it encourages the new roots to grow because they have to dig deeper in search of water?

Good work — except I now have twice as many geraniums to look after.

Originally published at greenhousetales.blogspot.co.uk on June 14, 2015.