Garden Centre

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Geranium/pelargonium cuttings

Back to the geraniums, because this is about the last point in the year when you can take cuttings from your zonal pelargoniums to have new plants for next year. While my new plants look lovely in their special container, I want many more plants, some for the house, some for the front garden and some to give away!

While cuttings can be taken in either early autumn or late winter early spring, there is no doubt that the summer ones (taken in August or September) produce bushier and more easily flowering plants.

To take a pelargonium cutting, make a cut below either the third or fourth joint, then strip away all the lower leaves, flower heads that have faded and flower buds until only two leaves are left at the top. Make sure you nip out all the stipules (the little leaflike appendages at the base of the leaf stalks) with your fingernails.

Most important – this is the bit I always forget! Put the cutting s in a dry atmosphere for 24 hours to allow a corky skin to form over the cuts - this prevents them from rotting. It does, I know for a fact, because every time I forget, the cuttings rot! A windowsill is a good place for this if its not in direct and hot sunlight.

Then set the cuttings in a pot of 50 % potting compost and 50% sand in a greenhouse or on a windowsill. You may use hormone rooting powder or not as you choose – I haven’t found any difference in the plants’ responses to it. Keep the soil moist but not soaked and ensure reasonable ventilation is provided – pelargoniums don’t like humid and stuffy air.. When they are well rooted, they're gradually hardened off and planted outside in May or June. Pinch the tips of the main shoots to encourage bushy growth.

Labels: cuttings, geranium, propagating plants, zonal pelargoniums

The All Seasons Gardener at 2:55 AM 0 Comments

---

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

A home fit for geraniums ...

And this is what they are going to go into! Okay, it doesn’t look terribly exciting at present, but this is a stone peat-box or (because we don’t make them from peat anymore, that being a relatively non-renewable resource) a hyper-tufa box, which ‘himself’ has made expressly for my geraniums.

Hyper-tufa is a cast rock-like material which can be used to make relatively inexpensive pots for the garden. It looks like rock, can be cast into almost any shape, is very lightweight and also strong enough to withstand the freeze/thaw cycle of most northern climates. We like it for three reasons:

1 – it is relatively heavy which means it doesn’t blow over in the all too frequent Sussex gales, which many other planters do

2 – it weathers really fast, after a month it looks old, after a year it looks ancient, and our oldest trough is five years old; rich in mosses and lichens and still coping perfectly with the vagaries of our weather

3 – we can make it into any shape we like.

Basic recipe

It’s so simple, just mix - part cement, 1 part sand, 2 parts compost

Then add water slowly until you get a thick porridgy texture. A mould can be made from two wooden boxes with the inner box about two inches smaller than the outer and the inner one covered in bin bags – don’t use cling film, it’s not tough enough! Pour the mixture into the bigger box to a depth of about an inch or so, the smaller box is then placed on the mixture and the remaining hyper-tufa rammed down the sides to make the walls of the container. Leave to cure for about three weeks, longer in damp weather. Now add drain holes as required using a screwdriver or drill – or use dowels coated in Vaseline that can just be knocked out of the bottom of the trough when it’s cured. Fill the trough with water or leave out in the rain for a couple of weeks to take all the chemical effects of the cement out of the equation before making drainage though.

Labels: container plants, garden flowers, geranium, hypertufa, troughs

The All Seasons Gardener at 8:30 AM 1 Comments

---

Monday, July 23, 2007

Geranium madness

Like most gardeners, I suppose, I get sudden passions. The current one is for geraniums, and this is the stripy wonder that I’ve been trying to get hold of for weeks. I’ve persuaded ‘himself’ to make me a special container for this, and the Madame Salleron that is trying to flower, despite the rain, and I’ve got the geranium bug in a big way!

But of course, they aren’t really geraniums. Wikipedia says: Pelargonium is a genus of flowering plants which includes about 200 species of perennial, succulent, and shrub plants, commonly known as geraniums. Confusingly, Geranium is the correct botanical name of the separate genus which contains the related Cranesbills. Both genera are in the Family Geraniaceae. Linnaeus originally included all the species in one genus, Geranium, but they were later separated into two genera by Charles L’Héritier in 1789. Gardeners sometimes refer to the members of Genus Pelargonium as "pelargoniums" in order to avoid the confusion, but the older common name "geranium" is still in regular use.

Indeed. What I like about pelargoniums is that many of them have scented leaves, that smell of mint, pineapple or rose and … well … geranium, of course. The oil that is used in aromatherapy is extracted from both the leaves and the flowers. Geranium has been grown for centuries for its fragrance and the extracted oil has been used to soothe and heal wounds and as a mild analgesic and sedative. Possible benefits from using the oil include: stress reduction, pain relief, removing fatigue and nervous exhaustion, lifting melancholy and easing depression, reducing fluid retention, and repelling insects – which may be why people have traditionally grouped scented leaf pelargoniums near their doors and windows – folk wisdom, clever innit! However, if you get a sudden urge to go all geranium in the aromatherapy rather than the floral sense, be aware that the oil may irritate sensitive skin and you shouldn’t use it if you are hypoglycemic because there is a chance it can lower blood-sugar levels.

Labels: aromatherapy, container plants, geranium, pelargonium, plants

The All Seasons Gardener at 3:47 AM 1 Comments

---