Easy to Grow Geraniums Improve Any Garden
More and more homeowners are realizing that a well kept garden can vastly improve their home (and it’s value). Even those houses with a small backyard can benefit greatly by the addition of a few plants, maybe grown in containers. While many can afford to employ the services of a landscaping contractor to create a suitable garden design and then construct and maintain it, most of us can not afford the luxury. Luckily gardening is not really that difficult and there are many garden perennials, such as geraniums, which are not only beautiful but are relatively easy to grow.
Perennials are those plants which grow and flower year after year whereas ‘annuals’ flower and die in the one year. The advantage to growing perennials, such as geraniums, is simply the fact that they create far less work than many other garden plants. You plant your perennials and, besides weeding and general garden duties, you can sit back and enjoy the blooms year after year. Furthermore, by choosing your landscaping plants carefully you can create borders in which the plants grow into each other creating a wall of color and few weeds, a low maintenance garden design!
Geraniums were first introduced, from Africa, into Europe in the sixteenth century. Due to their wide ranging colors of whites, pinks and blues which include mauve and deeper blues to almost black, geraniums soon became popular with gardeners. The popularity of geraniums was further enhance by the fact that they are incredibly easy to grow successfully.
As well as the wonderful range of colors, the blooms of the geranium are sometimes veined with a darker color creating more interest. Furthermore the leaves of the plant can range from mid-green to dark-green and can be gray-green or even silver-green. Altogether these variations help make the choice of geraniums wide and interesting. Overall there are well over 400 different species of geranum, below are some of the most popular.
Popular Geraniums
G. cinereum which grows up to 15cm (6in) high and 30cm (1ft) across.
G. dalmaticum which grows up to 15cm (6in) high and 60cm (2ft) across.
G. endressii which grows up to 45cm (1.5ft) high.
G. grandiflorum which grows up to 30cm (1ft) high and 60cm (2ft) across.
G. ibericum which grows up to 60cm (2ft) high and 60cm (2ft) across.
G. macrorrhizum which grows up to 30cm (1ft) high and 60cm (2ft) across.
G. phaeum which grows up to 60cm (2ft) high and 45cm (1.5ft) across.
G. pratense which grows up to, or even over, 60cm (2ft) high.
G. psilostemon which grows up to 90cm (3ft) high and 75cm (2.5ft) across.
G. renardii which grows up to 23cm (9in) high and 60cm (2ft) across.
G. sanguineum which grows up to 25cm (10in) high and 45cm (1.5ft) across.
G. subcaulescens which grows up to 15cm (6in) high and 30cm (1ft) across.
G. sylvaticum which grows up to 75cm (2.5ft) high and 60cm (2ft) across.
G. wallichianum which grows up to 30cm (1ft) high and 60cm (2ft) across.
As you can see there is a wide choice. If you want to grow this incredibly useful garden perennial there is plenty of information available on the Internet and there are many good quality gardening books available online, from your nearest book shop or from local libraries.
Watch the video related to gardening plants
Forest gardener Martin Crawford, who recently appeared on BBC 2s Natural World programme A Farm for the Future, gives a taster of his DVD A Year in a Forest Garden, which will be out in April. Martin created a forest garden 15 years ago that is full of unusual edible plants trees, shrubs and ground cover plants which yield an abundant crop of food with minimum effort. His book Creating a Forest Garden: perennial crops for a changing climate comes out in Spring 2010. www.greenbooks.co.uk…
Help answer the question about gardening plants
Tags: culinary, ethnobotany, for, history, holly, laurel, medicinal, mountain, of, plants, Texas, wildlife, yaupon
November 21st, 2004 at 2:05 am
Try contacting permaculture magazine UK. I’m sure they can help
November 21st, 2004 at 2:06 am
Yes, and I would like DVD of the Farm for the Future programme by Rebecca Hosking. Anyone know if you can buy it?
November 21st, 2004 at 1:28 am
Both will survive inside during winter. Both root easily (and will grow happily) in water (use clear container.)
A few other annuals that overwinter inside:
Geranium
Begonia
Hoya
Hibiscus
Dichondra
November 21st, 2004 at 9:10 am
a genius!
November 21st, 2004 at 2:16 am
recycled water? whats the water from a nuclear reactor. don't use that but if its from anything that would have nutriants it would be real advantages. as long as its not toxic waste are full of oil are something like that
November 21st, 2004 at 4:31 am
Agave, cactus, ephedra, nolina=bear grass, many types of yucca, our Lord's candle, chamise, manzanita, desert holly, red barberry, ceanothos, Texas ranger, hollyleaf cherry, catalina cherry, lemonade berry, California buckwheat, needlegrass, sage, coffeebery, columbine, dudleya, fescue, iris, snowberry, desert marigold, chocolate daisy, pink fairyduster, and many, many more!
Try the Arizona Native Plant Society, P. O. Box 41206, Sun Station, Tucson, AZ 85704
November 21st, 2004 at 11:57 am
If you grow plants under different colors of cellophane it will affect their biomass. Since chlorophyll is the predominant pigment in most plants (all the green ones), the plants whose chlorophyll is most efficient will have more energy and grow faster. Chlorophyll absorbs red light most efficiently, and green light least efficiently, so a decent hypothesis to make would be that the plant under the red filter would grow the best, purple or orange might be second best, blue or yellow might be third, and green would be worst.
November 21st, 2004 at 12:36 pm
think outside the box remember all the mark brothers and most large outlet stores have there own garden shop — get a job there!!!
November 21st, 2004 at 8:59 pm
Better homes & garden has a free interactive landscape planing website. You'll have register to log on to their website (You don't need to buy anything or subscribe to their magazine).
"Plan-a-Garden lets you design anything from a patio-side container garden to your whole yard. Use your mouse to "drag-and-drop" more than 150 trees, shrubs, and flowers. Add dozens of structures like buildings, sheds, fences, decks — even a pond."
P.S. You may also have to close their magazine ad. by clicking on the x
http://www.bhg.com/bhg/story.jsp?storyid=/templatedata/bhg/story/data/planagardenhome_03022002.xml
Garden Styles & Plans from Better Homes & Garden:
http://www.bhg.com/gardening/plans/
http://www.bhg.com/gardening/plans/special-spots/foundation-garden-plan/
Plans from HGTV:
http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/gl_landscaping_design/
Lowe's Landscape & Garden planner
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=pg&p=Down_to_Earth/GardenPlanner/gardenplansplash.html&rn=none3D
Garden planner
http://www.gardencomposer.com/demo-planner-1.html (demo)
http://www.gardencomposer.com/demo-planner-15.html
BBC Gardening- Virtual Design
http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/design/virtualgarden_index.shtml
DIY Planner
http://www.curbly.com/DIY-Maven/posts/1496-FREE-On-Line-Garden-Planner
Thought you'd like to see some landscaping design ideas from this Just Gardeners website:
http://justgardeners.com/hrsc/articles/art_landscape-design.html
This site contains a gallery of forum users's own pics too:
http://justgardeners.com/hrsc/ourgardens/ourgarden_pages/ourgardens_cornus.html
http://justgardeners.com/hrsc/ourgardens/ourgarden_pages/ourgardens_donnalockman.html
http://justgardeners.com/hrsc/ourgardens/ourgarden_pages/ourgardens_jill.html
Garden Web's Landscape-design forum:
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/design/
Good luck!!! Hope this is helpful.
November 22nd, 2004 at 1:36 am
if you want color, you will have to plant annuals, which are beautiful but must be replanted every year (that's why they are called annuals). If you want greenery, then perennials are your best best. Perennials are good in that they come back every year, but they aren't very colorful. It sounds like you live in a pretty mild climate, so you might have luck with the annuals, they may not ever die on you. I like snapdragons, peonies (very fragrant and much easier to grow than roses) and gardenias. For perennials, nothing beats the hardy mum.
November 22nd, 2004 at 11:36 am
Oregano is such an easy herb! The benefit is that is can be used for such a wide variety of things, and it is a perennial so it will come back every year!
Other no brainers (and I know this from my own personal experience) is lemon verbena, thyme (lemon thyme as well) rosemary, mint, and lavender, and basil.
I have had some troubles with sage, but maybe it doesn't like Ohio weather, so the humid/hot might be good for it! Pretty much any herb is workable, just buy from a good source (preferably a farmer's market) and read any labels. I know having them indoors vs. outdoors makes a difference as well, so what I share is just from having outdoor herbs. (I just dug up the ground, plopped them in, and they lived!)
Good luck!
November 22nd, 2004 at 11:13 pm
Great video. Will be buying the DVD and putting it into practice.
November 23rd, 2004 at 6:46 am
If ever there was someone who deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, it is Martin. A genius….
November 23rd, 2004 at 12:14 pm
Garden Web…. they've got forums for everything and the advice from their 'regular' folks is pretty darned good!…
http://www.gardenweb.com/
clik on 'gardenweb forums' to get started….