In spring I purchased about six red trailing pelargonium plants and transplanted them into MiracleGro potting compost in a big terracotta container. They haven't trailed very far, which isn't a bad thing in this case, but what they have done is provided a continual bright display of red flowers all summer long. We are now into autumn and they are still going strong, and I suspect they might keep on flowering right up until the first hard frosts of winter. I think I'll try and keep them alive until next spring so that they will flower again but this will mean protecting them with garden fleece. I expect the success or failure will depend upon the mildness or harshness of our coming winter. They are such a lovely, vibrant, red.
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| Red trailing pelargonium flower and buds - macro photograph |
All I've had to do to keep them flowering is water them when they are thirsty, feed them occasionally with Phostrogen, and dead-head the dying flowers regularly. They are so easy to dead-head, pelargoniums. I just carefully snap off the stem where it joins the plant. They come away so easily.
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| Red trailing pelargoniums |
The reason why I am going to try and overwinter them outdoors is because a couple of trailing pelargoniums survived over last winter. They were planted in little wall baskets and were nearly at death's door and trying to send up little green shoots when I spotted them this spring, . I had been going to empty the baskets and replant for the summer but I couldn't bring myself to discard plants that had gone through winter and were trying so hard to survive. One of those plants is now making flowers, rather late in the day. The other would have, except yours truly went and snapped off the flowering stem by accident. I know, I know...you don't have to tell me.
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| Red trailing pelargonium flower - macro photograph |
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| Red trailing pelargonium flower - macro photograph |
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| Red trailing pelargonium flower - macro photograph |
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| Red trailing pelargoniums in my garden |
The red pelargoniums, in the image below, actually survived our last (mild) winter without protection. They are not flowering quite as profusely as the trailing pelargoniums, above, but they haven't been bad at all. At the moment they are making bud after I have just dead-headed the last of the present burst of flowering stems.
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| Red pelargoniums making new buds. |