How To Protect Your Geraniums During The Winter Months

Geraniums (also known as pelargoniums) are great plants to have in your home garden. They are not only beautiful in pots or hanging planters but also make great companion plants to roses and have a scent that repels biting insects like mosquitoes. Because they're native to South Africa, they're hardy and drought-resistant –  but this also means they also don't do well in the cold. In fact, geraniums are one of those tender plants that typically don't survive a hard freeze. Because of this, many gardeners treat them as annuals in the northern hemisphere and let them die off in the winter. In reality, these flowers are actually perennials that can come back year after year with the right care.

While letting geraniums die off in the winter and buying new ones in the spring is often the easiest thing to do, if you have found a particular type of geranium that you really adore for its special scent or color, then you may want to keep them for multiple years by protecting them in the winter. There are a few different ways to successfully overwinter geraniums, from bringing them inside in pots and treating them as houseplants to digging up the roots and storing them as dormant plants in your root cellar. However, before you rush to overwinter your geraniums, there are a few things you need to know.

The first step in protecting geranium plants in the winter is to keep them outside for as long as possible. Like most plants, geraniums will do better outside in natural light and fresh air. However, while these flowers can survive a few light frosts, you definitely want to bring them inside before the first freeze. If you plan on simply bringing your potted geraniums inside and treating them as houseplants, then you can first cut the plants back to about a third or a half of their size. Then, simply place them in a well-lit area of your home and water them only when the soil is dry to the touch. Keeping geraniums alive inside during winter has many benefits, including that the overwintered plants will likely be able to produce larger flowers in the next season.

If your geraniums are planted directly in the ground or in a large planter that is not easy to bring inside, then you can still overwinter your flowers by digging them up and storing them in an unfinished basement, garage, or shed. To do this, you should first dig up the plants, shake off any soil from the roots, and let them dry out for a few days. Once this is done, you can go ahead and cut the plants back to around 4 inches per stem and remove all the leaves. You can also trim up the roots a bit before storing them in paper bags or cardboard boxes in a cool dark place where they will go dormant. According to one Redditor on r/gardening who regularly overwinters their geraniums, when you pull out the plants in the spring, you should "soak the roots in water for about 4 hours" right before planting to ensure your plants will thrive when they come out of dormancy.