Pelargonium (geranium)

[Clair]

Thanks to some good forum advice last year, I have managed to over-winter all the géraniums lierre I had bought last year.

They've spent the last few months indoors, in an almost unheated room but with limited access to light.

I must move them outside by 18th April (paying guests arriving and no space anywhere else...)

The plants are healthy, green and growing, but the growth is quite leggy.

I am wondering if I should leave the leggy stems as they are and hope the plants bush out later or if I should cut everything back to short stumps and pray for new growth...?

[Scooby]

Absolutely, cut them back or they will end up even more leggy and straggly.  You can be quite brutal with them - just so long as you cut above a little 'joint'.  Use the pieces you cut off for cuttings.  Just push them (the right way up) into slighlty moist (not wet) compost and leave for a few weeks until they have rooted.  If the pieces you cut off are very long you can cut them into sections to make more plants.

[Clair]

Thanks Scooby.

It sounds quite drastic and I am really scared I am going to kill them...[:'(]

[Clair]

I have 63 plants in 21 balconnières and they looked like THIS last year (not my picture though!)

They would be costly to replace...

Our Gam Vert is doing a "Buy 2, Get 1 Free" on 50 l bags of Terreau pour Géranium from Fertiligène at €7.00 a bag, so I'll get started this week.

Wish me luck...

[seb47]

Good luck Clair - did you see that Lidl have petunias on offer Thursday 10th - 10 plants for 1.99. I bought some last year and they were good strong plants. They also had pelargonia (hanging geranium) at the same price last year on 20th April, so that'll probably be next week.