Posted on 10.05.2021 |
Added in Featured Conservation Plants
Geranium ‘Pink Delight’
Spring is a time for dividing plants and making new ones. That’s exactly what I’ve done this week with my Geranium ‘Pink Delight’.
I kept it in its pot last year so I could trial it in different parts of the garden. Eventually I decided it belonged at the base of an arching trellis where I have planted a climbing rose. It gets sun there most of the day, and because I keep the rose well watered, plenty of moisture too.
Looking a little scruffy after the winter weather, I started by dumping the pot into a seed tray to get a good look at the plant.
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I could see that it had several growing points which would divide easily to form new plants. I began by breaking these apart, first into 3 sections.
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One of these sections had two prominent growing points going in opposite directions. I decided to try splitting these to make two plants. That was harder than it looked, and the woody base stem was longer than I expected.
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This gave me 4 pieces to pot up, but as I began to pot up one of the pieces with the cut stem, I began to have second thoughts. It was such a long cut and so exposed I wondered if it would get diseased if buried in soil. In the end I wasn’t brave enough to do it. I broke off the two individual ‘arms’ and potted them separately.
I potted all these sections up into a fairly gritty mix of John Innes 2 and peat free multi-purpose compost to which I added some fine grit and vermiculite. When my job was complete I had 5 pots ready to grow on.
The first pot had several growing points and was planted with a nice clump of the old roots and soil still attached. The second pot was the smallest piece with 2 tiny growing points and only a few leaves. This is probably too small, but it broke off on its own so I thought I might as well give it a pot and see what happens.
The other three pots were from the section I cut with my knife. Perhaps I should have kept one of the cut sections to see how it did, but instead I potted them up as shorter pieces.
I will keep the largest section to eventually plant out in my back garden. The other 4 pots will go back into the Conservation Scheme (assuming they all grow!) so that new growers have a chance to enjoy this lovely little geranium.
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Introduced into the Scheme in 2015, Geranium ‘Pink Delight’ has been a Feature plant twice before. If you want to know more about it and how it came into the scheme see the articles for November 2015 and July 2018.
