Why do geraniums lose strength in summer? High temperatures and lack of nutrients! Just remove faded flowers, yellowed leaves and switch to fertilizer with potassium and phosphorus. Result? Beautifully blooming geraniums until autumn! Take a look.
it is one of the most popular balcony plants. They are beautiful, their care is not extremely demanding, and they can bloom for you until autumn. Although the care of geraniums is not among the most difficult on the list of balcony plants, there are still a few rules to follow. Sometimes it can happen that geraniums start to lose their vitality during the summer, start to turn yellow and stop blooming. Fortunately, now is the best time for a little summer reboot to give the geraniums their strength back and promote abundant flowering. Gardener Ludmila Svobodová from Prague shared this with iReceptář.
Summer restart of geraniums
“When geraniums are exposed to high temperatures for a long time, it can happen that in the early summer their leaves can turn yellow and the flowers grow less. This is due to the fact that in high temperatures they have to create new shoots and bloom, for which they consume more nutrients. If the lower leaves of geraniums turn yellow, it is probably caused by a lack of nutrients or the natural aging of the plant. Faded flowers or old leaves can also make this problem worse. Therefore, it is desirable to carry out a July cut in the summer and adjust the amount of fertilizer.” says Ludmila.
” and give them the necessary support for lush flowering. It does not necessarily have to be a radical intervention. It is enough to remove all faded flower stalks, yellowed leaves and weak or damaged shoots. Thanks to this, the plant will not waste energy on parts that no longer have any use, and it will be able to focus all its energy on the creation of new flowers and healthy green leaves.”
“July is also the right time to lightly adjust the fertilizer. At the beginning of the season, i.e. in the spring, geraniums mainly need nitrogen for the growth of leaves and shoots. During the summer, however, leaf growth can go a bit by the wayside, and instead you should focus on encouraging flowering. Therefore, it is ideal to use fertilizers for flowering balcony plants in summer, as they contain more potassium and phosphorus. Potassium and phosphorus are nutrients that support the formation of new flowers and improve the overall vitality of the plant. Thanks to the adjustment of the fertilizer, your geraniums can bloom beautifully until autumn.” stated Ludmila for iReceptář.
Small intervention, big difference
So even if it’s a relatively small intervention, the difference can be really big. If you give geraniums with yellowed leaves a light cut and adjust the fertilizer, you will be able to enjoy profusely blooming geraniums until autumn. In addition, the second wave of flowering can be even larger and more lush than the first.
