How to Propagate Geraniums

Cheerful geraniums enliven any garden border or container.

Come February and March, we all get a little antsy to get out and dig in the dirt. Geraniums can be wintered over to give another season of bloom and more plants for the border. They can also keep you busy so you don't spend too much time with those seed catalogs. Bring plants inside for the winter and grow new plants from cuttings.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Geranium
• Peat pots
• Potting medium
• Rooting hormone powder

1. Choose healthy geranium plants with lots of branches to keep over the winter. Pot them up and treat them like houseplants. Overwinter the geraniums in the garage or keep them in your bedroom window all winter long. Since geraniums are perennials, plants may be kept inside and continue to grow. After the last spring frost, they can be moved back out to the garden for another year of spectacular blooms.

2. Pinch the branches of the geraniums back during the winter to encourage bushiness and to keep them from getting leggy. Use the pinched branches to create more geraniums.

3. Snip the ends of branches from adult plants you are overwintering and strip off all but the end leaves. You should have two or three nodules on each stem. Start as many sturdy shoots as you have.

4. Dust the ends of the stems with rooting hormone powder and plant them in peat pots filled with a sterile, lightweight planting medium. Keep the soil moist but not wet to avoid mildew.

5. After about a week, move the cuttings to a sunny window and leave them there to grow until after the last frost, when the plants can be moved outside. Pinch them back once after they root to create another branch in each new plant.

Tips & Warnings

• Geraniums can also be started from seed, but you should only plant seeds from reliable sources, as many varieties do not grow true to type. If you grow from seed, start 12 to 16 weeks before the last frost. Cover the small seeds lightly with soil and move them outside only after the last frost.

• Strip all blooms when you pot up your geraniums in the fall and again when you start shoots in the spring. Blooms rob the plant of the energy it needs to grow and set roots.

References

• University of Rhode Island: Geranium Culture
• Washington State University Extension: Geraniums

Resources

• Texas A&M: Geraniums: How to Grow and Propagate Them