More propagating & growing zonal geraniums

We propagate zonal geraniums the same way we do many other plants and that is by cuttings. The post on growing German ivy goes into the process in detail with photos.
The geraniums starts like it warm and sunny.



Warm because if it is cool and damp they are liable to develop fungus or Botrytis blight and both are not good. When this has happened in the past we first let the plants dry out a bit and treated them serenade. Another fix we have tried is ground cinnamon but the serenade works fine and is certified organic.

The thing is with the geraniums, once they have good roots and are growing it will not hurt to let them dry out a bit between watering. And keep them warm. The fungi seem to like the cool and dam conditions.
Once they are growing good we like to keep them pinched back in the middle to encourage them to bulk up and branch out. Every day we go over the starts and look for evidence of flower buds, which we pinch off. We want them to grow nice leaves and strong roots.

If we see these we pinch them off and keep the center top leaves pinched back too so the plants will get stocky with good branching. It seems mean to pinch perfectly good leaves but the end result is stronger roots and better foliage.



The fertilizer we start them on is a 5-10-5 to help the roots but after they are flourishing we switch to a liquid 24-8-16 which is good for the foliage. When we are ready to let them bloom we switch back to the 5-10-5.

Make sure the geraniums are in a warm sunny area and they will take off.
keep the geranium in a sunny place

The plants above have good color and abundant new leaf growth. They are strong and will soon be potted up from the 4 inch square to quarts.