I was walking down 192nd from the Athletic Club yesterday, when I discovered FREE PLANTS.

Farm Candy Nursery is trying to find new homes for a surplus of scented geraniums and pelargoniums (you know: those Martha Washington style geraniums?). So a big sign, “FREE!”, applies to all the plants on her little farm stand’s shelves. Sizes range from in 3″, 4″ and 5.5″ pots, with above-ground sizes from 5″ high to over a foot.

Now I realize that it’s not planting-out time: these geraniums are going to need over-wintering. Since not I, my husband, or my mother have ever successfully over-wintered geraniums, I decided to phone Farm Candy’s Rachel Lydecker to find out how she keeps these popular plants alive.

“The Number One thing is, don’t let their roots freeze,” she told me. “The perfect situation would be sitting at your brightest window in the house, with a little bit of watering every 2-3 weeks and a light feeding mid-winter.”

I didn’t need to press for details: she’s besotted by this plant and even likes them grown large and sculptural, more twisting stems than leaves.

So go get your summer 2010 geraniums and pelargoniums now, for free. And when you long for summer, just go rub a leaf of “True Rose” geranium and enjoy the scent of June.

For more info on Farm Candy Nursery, visit www.farmcandy.strangegarden.com

How to Overwinter Geraniums and Pelargoniums

LIGHT:  put them next to a sunny window indoors. “You can’t give them too much light in the winter.”

HEAT: “not super-warm,” Rachel says. An unheated room in your house would be okay, but not in a shed or garage that’s vulnerable to freezing.

WATER: Not bone-dry, not parched, but not real wet, either. Check the soil. Water maybe every 2-3 weeks. “I suspect that if you put the potted plants on top of a shallow pan of pebbles and water—not IN, but on TOP of—they would like the extra humidity and need less water.”

FEEDING:  After the New Year, give them a light feeding of house-plant food. They would also like a little Epson salts, about a tablespoon per gallon of water. 

PRUNING: They tend to get leggy—you can pinch off the new growth.

IN SPRING: When the temps reach the low 40s, you can start acclimatizing the plants to the outdoors during daylight hours. If they get left out on a cold night, “frost will make them pretty ugly, all the leaves will fall off, but the roots may still be alive.”

MAKING MORE:  You can take cuttings of any new growth and pot them up in sterile potting soil to increase your stock of plants. Cut below a leaf node (where the leaf emerges from the stalk) for a cutting about 2″ long. Stick in damp potting soil. (Don’t try to root in water: these roots are of a different type that aren’t adapted to taking up nutrients from soil, which is where you want your geranium eventually.) The plants will put out new growth when there’s enough light next spring.

[FarmCandy’s Care Instructions: “To keep your pelargonium happy, give it plenty of light, a light feeding every two weeks in summer and every month in winter. If they are in a greenhouse, you may need to protect them from strong light with a light shadecloth. They don’t want to dry out completely, but be careful not to overwater or let water sit in the saucer. Bring them in for the winter.

   To make sachets, cut new growth and dry in an oven set to “warm” or in the microwave at two minutes at a time, letting steam escape in between. When the leaves and stems are crisp, crush them up and put in decorative bags. They make great gifts! 

For more information on pelargoniums and for links and suggested readings, visit us at http://farmcandy.strangegarden.com/ and be sure to email any questions with the words “plant question” in the subject line. Thanks for choosing Farm Candy as your gernium enabler!