I had just three Geraniums last year and in October I brought one in to keep over winter in its pot and two were cleaned of soil,  placed upside down in a paper bag, taped shut, then put in the unheated garage.

A couple of days ago I decided it was time to wake them up and pot them up. One started to produce leaves within two days. The other isn’t looking so great but time will tell. I can see three good cuttings on the potted plant and then this original plant will also be ready for the greenhouse. Even with the loss of one I will still have five this year, (providing my cuttings take), at no cost except a little bit of my time.

Some plants including geraniums are amazingly resilient and with a little bit of time, there is no need to purchase all new geraniums every year.

In fact throughout the summer many new plants could be started from the ones you already have. Below is the one plant I kept green over winter. It shares its pot with Oxalis. I took four cuttings, each snipping just beneath a node. Then removed the lower leaves and any flower buds and popped the cuttings into a glass of water. They will show roots fairly quickly and once I see them, I will pot them up into clay posts, ready for their next move which will be either out into the garden in their pot or into a mixed planter. The lower leaves and flower buds are removed to prevent energy from going into them and direct the energy into new roots.

A node is an intersection. On a plant, it is where one or more leaves or stems emerge. Cuttings are frequently taken just beneath a node because this is where there are most growth hormones, especially in the spring when a plant is naturally starting its growth cycle.

A few weeks back I wrote about plant nomenclature and the problems it sometimes causes when reclassifications occur. The name geranium is actually another misnomer. These plants are actually classified as Pelargoniums and Geraniums are the plants known as Cranesbills or hardy Geraniums.

Both groups of plants however belong to the family of Geraniaceae in the genus Geranium. When Carl Linnaeus, the father of plant classification first organized the plant kingdom, he grouped the two plants together but as with all things, more knowledge found more differences and the plants were separated. For over two hundred years Pelargoniums have been still called by their original name, Geraniums, so it is is not worth worrying about it too much! There are many, hundreds, of species within each genus but we commonly tend to identify with Ivy Geraniums, Scented Geraniums and Zonal Geraniums even though technically they are all Pelargoniums. Zonal Geraniums are plants grown from cuttings as opposed to seed. Ivy are the trailing kind and scented are, well, scented, with fragrances of lemon, chocolate and rose. Geraniums are a perennial in their native habitat of Africa but are not hardy enough to survive zone three winters so they are frequently treated as an annual.

Real Geraniums are the Crane’s – Bills or Hardy Geraniums, the perennials we have in our borders. They are the mainstay of many a flower border. Varieties such as ‘Johnson’s Blue’ are one of the most popular hardy perennials.

Left: two varieties of Crane’s Bills or real Geraniums