How to overwinter geraniums

Learn 2 simple methods for overwintering your geraniums (pelargoniums).

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[jennifermcferran]

I had 100% success with this! I bought a rather expensive and hard to find color of geranium which I particularly love. So, last year I watched your video and put all my plants away in one giant cardboard box for the winter. This spring when time came to plant geraniums, I looked all over town, several times, for the geraniums I loved. I even had conversations with my husband about what to put in our planters since I could find the geraniums I'd used the previous year. Then, mid-way through one such conversation, I remembered! I had over-wintered all my geraniums! Sheesh. Needless-to-say, in my TOTAL forgetfulness, I had not checked on those geraniums once after boxing them. Once those plants were packed up, the fell completely off my radar. But, we potted and planted all 12 plants, and within a month we had beautiful blooming geraniums. Mother nature never ceases to amaze me.

[simsim]

I followed ur directions and put away my geraniums in the winter of 2020. I replanted them in a pot in this February and its taking off like a brand new plant. I must say it was a genius of an idea and u saved me money. Thank u very much!!

[marymackay]

Good clear instructions with no nonsense involved cant go wrong with this video.

[angelenerash]

I just wanted to thank you for this video. I decided last fall to try to overwinter mine. I recently pulled them out of storage and replanted in pots. After just a few days they have new growth. I was beyond excited since these are my favorite flowers!!

[AcornHillHomestead]

I overwintered my geranium in the house because the color is a beautiful hot pink with a deep pink center. I kept them going as live plants. We are in the upper midwest US. They even bloomed over winter by our sunny southern facing sliding glass door! This plant has been overwintered twice the same way. I repotted it and all by itself it now fills a 16” wide pot with a single potato vine. The blooms are huge and spectacular. My mom overwintered hers in the basement. They all came back after potting them up. I also overwintered indoors a lantana. It is now big and shrubby with woody stems at three years old. I have two other geraniums I will overwinter now because they are a pale pink that have gorgeous papery luminescence in the evening. Overwintering helps me deal with such long winters.

[dianehall]

Hi Susan. Thank you for this video. My grandmother Hazel taught me about the Rose Geranium. She would take a leaf and place it on the bottom of her cake pan, cover it with parchment paper and pour her white cake batter.
The baked cake smelled like she used expensive rose water! It has taken me years to find this plant again and I forgot it in the kitchen garden! If I am fortunate enough to acquire more geraniums, I want to winter them over. Thanks gain!

[maily]

For a lazy gardener like me, generium is perfect plant 🌱. I just cut and stick it in the soils and let it do the rest. From one plant, it multiplied to many plants in my garden.

[helenmalandrakis]

I used to do this very same thing when I had a place to store them. In the Spring I would put them in water to rehydrate them. It worked.

[mollypitcher]

Hi Susan - this is a very well produced and thorough video and I will follow your directions this fall. Wish me luck!!!

[shusha]

Nice video Susan. End of season here in Hamilton, Canada. I take cuttings of my fave plants start up a new pot that I will bring in every winter. I do that for all the cuttings and have had success keeping them alive in soil and then taking them out in early spring. always had success. Overwintering method like you said in your video works very good too. I also do that for my Purple heart and last year even took a cutting off of my puple potato vine and had great success

[peterexley]

That appears to be the easiest way, I was wondering how I could lift some of my larger pots. I can do that, Thank you Susan

[carolynmalboeuf]

I've never done all this. I've had the same geraniums for many years and I just bring them in, remove all dead leaves and put the pots in a window over the winter months and theu even flower a bit. In the spring I put out doors again and they bloom like crazy!

[sirdukeusa]

I worked the nursery for my neighbor and she broke a piece of geranium off and tosed it aside. I brought it home, 2 houses up, put it in a pot of dirt and it took right off. It had bloomed the prettiest light pink, I had ever seen, she came up and looked at it. After I brought it in, in the same planter, for the winter, it blooms again, but this time, it has white blooms with dark pink stripes in the center, blows my mind. Hers did the same.

[noreenmccarthy]

Ohhh, I just saw the update below, terrific! Thanks Susan, you are informative and enjoyable to watch!

[asunagullo]

I live in Spain, the place from which geraniums come (Canary Islands). To overwinter them you don't need to do this. I've had geraniums for over 45 years, all colours, specially red, pink, orange, fuchsia, wine, ...
If the weather where you live doesn't go bellow -2ºC, you can just keep them out in your porch and cover them with transparent plastic bags, they can be normal bags, which you must wrap around the stem or those plastic greenhouses which you can get for 30 dollars in which you can keep 10-12 plants, they are sort of a cover for shelves. The plastic bag keeps the heat around the plant and prevents them from freezing. Don't worry if you see lots of brown leaves and they look horrible, if the roots have not frozen, they will survive and grow faster than new ones. If you use plastic pots it is easier to keep them alive because the roots will not suffer so much. In Spain we also have flowerpots which have sort of double wall with isolating material between them. They are perfect because roots never get frozen. The main goal is to avoid snow or freeze caoming directly over them.


When the risk of snow or frost is over, just trim them, add some new soil over the old one. Bring them out to the sun and in 15 days your plants will look gourgeous and marvellous. If your plant is older it will be more able to stand cold weather.


I've got geraniums over which I simply placed a plastic piece of material before snow came over them and they've survived. We get -3ºC in December and January and all my geraniums survive every year. I have some which are 1 m high and and 80cm diameter.


If you live in a really cold weather, then you should take them inside, Do not place them near heaters and do not take them in too late in the season, because the one thing they don't like is a big change in temperatures, sort of 2ºC outside, 23ºC inside. When I get them inside I use to do so in November, before the temperature comes bellow zero.

[jpd]

Greetings from the Principality of Andorra, where winter is long and hard. I winterized my geranium for the first time in november last year. Did very well with paper bags and replanting 9 out of 11 of our geraniums. I am going to "put my geraniums to sleep" in the good sense probably at the end of october. We live at 5500 feet o.s.l. and we need to keep them stored until may. That's about 6-7 months!! Meaning that we have to keep a constant eye on them and soak them in water at weekly basis. This year I am going to try with one cardboard box. Thanks for the tip in your video! It is sad to let our plants freeze in winter, is it not? I loved watching your video. Thank you very much!

[paulcreed]

Not sure if you are in the UK or USA but anyway, my late dad had fantastic geraniums and as he has a cellar he over wintered them with great success. I, however do not have a cellar so the box system looks to be the answer to my problems. I will let you know how it goes! Many thanks Paul :-)

[cobralord]

Cool, I didn’t know you could store dry them, I always pot mine up and bring them in doors but I will defiantly give this a go!

[margretsubero]

I thank you very much for your help today God bless 🙌

[seriouslyreally]

I bring my 18inch pot in with its lush, massive geranium, during the winter. It sits in front of a south facing sliding glass door so it gets the maximum benefit offered by the low sun arc and short days in winter. The first 2 week the plant "downsizes" by shedding all unneccessary inner leaves which turn yellow and brown quite quickly. I pick them off. I keep the soil very minimally damp all winter. Within the next few weeks the remaining leaf stems will elongate and the leaves themselves will get as big as saucers etiolating to maximize the surface area of the leaves to absorb the weak light. It will look pretty bad. Mid winter late Jan. I completly prune all the stems back by half leaving bare stems and only a few leaves. I can see where the old dead branches and stems are an can prune them out to healthy tissue. Similar to winter pruning roses. In a few more weeks all new stems and branches will sprout from the bare stems and regrow into a lush well proportioned ( not leggy) plant just in time to set it back outside in early spring. I feed and water it when I set it back outside. This plant "Calliope" is 16 years old and puts out a stunning display of dark red flowers all summer long. Worth saving.