Looking for a few tips and tricks for how to fertilize your geraniums this year to keep them blooming strong all summer long?
Geraniums are one of the most popular flowering plants for containers, flowerbeds, and hanging baskets – and for good reason. Their bright blooms and tidy foliage make them stand out all season long. But if you want your geraniums to keep blooming strong, they need the right kind of care – and definitely the right mix of nutrients!
When grown as an annual, geraniums can fill out fast. And can they ever devour up the nutrients in the soil around them in quick fashion. That means if you want them to keep putting out flowers, they’ll need a steady supply of food all season long.
When you first plant geraniums, whether in a flowerbed or container, they usually have what they need to grow from the fresh potting soil or planting mix. But as the weeks go by and the plants get bigger, the nutrients in that soil start to run out.
Unfortunately, once those nutrients disappear, the plants can struggle to bloom, even if they still look green and full of foliage. This is especially true for geraniums grown in pots or containers. Container soil can only hold so many nutrients, and even the richest potting mix can only feed plants for a short time. Once the nutrients are gone, your plants will stop flowering unless you step in to help.
The Best Way To Fertilize Geraniums
What Kind Of Fertilizer Works Best For Geraniums
Fertilizing geraniums properly means giving them a balanced source of nutrients. Most fertilizers have three main components: nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P), and potassium (K). Most packages will contain them in numbers such as 10-10-10 or 15-15-15.
Each of these nutrients plays an important role in the health of your geraniums. Nitrogen helps the plant grow leaves and stems, phosphorous supports flower and root development, and potassium helps with the plant’s health and water balance.
With geraniums, the key is to avoid giving them too much nitrogen. Nitrogen can help a plant grow strong, lush green leaves. But if it gets too much, the plant will focus more on growing foliage instead of producing blooms. You might end up with a great-looking plant that hardly flowers at all.
That’s why it’s important to use a fertilizer that gives some nitrogen – but a bit more phosphorous and potassium. This way, the plant gets everything it needs to stay healthy. But the extra phosphorous will help it bloom better and far more continuously. Affiliate Link: EZ-GRO 10-30-20 Blossom Booster Fertilizer – Liquid Plant Food
The phosphorous helps generate more flower buds, the potassium keeps the plant strong and manages water use, and the smaller dose of nitrogen provides growth without overdoing it.
Why It’s Best To Fertilize Geraniums With A Liquid Mix
When choosing a fertilizer for geraniums, liquid fertilizers are the best option. While slow-release or granular fertilizers can work over time, they aren’t always fast enough. Especially when geraniums are growing in containers.
Liquid fertilizers can work faster because they absorb into the roots and can also be taken in through the leaves. This gives your plants a quick boost, and that means more flowers sooner. To get the most from a liquid fertilizer, apply it every ten to fourteen days during the growing season. This keeps a steady flow of nutrients going into the plant without overwhelming it.
A Few Extra Tips To Keep Your Geraniums Blooming –
Knowing the best way to fertilize geraniums is just one part of keeping them healthy and flowering. Another helpful trick is to deadhead your plants regularly. Deadheading means removing the old, spent flowers once they start to wilt and fade.
If you leave old blooms on the plant, they begin to draw energy away. The plant will keep trying to repair and support the dying flower head. That, in turn, takes power that could be better used to create new blooms.
To deadhead geraniums the right way, cut off not just the flower petals, but the entire stem that held the flower. Cut the stem all the way back to the base, beneath the leaves. This keeps the plant looking neat and also stops the plant from wasting energy on blooms that are finished.
By removing the entire flower stem, you free up the plant’s energy to focus on pushing out fresh blooms. Doing this regularly will not only make the plant look better, but it will also help it bloom more often and longer throughout the season. See our article: The Best Way To Deadhead Geraniums – How To Cut Back Old Blooms For New Flowers!
Don’t Give Your Plants Too Much Water
While giving geraniums the right fertilizer is important, watering them correctly is just as critical. In fact, one of the most common problems people run into with geraniums is watering them too often. Geraniums don’t like to sit in soggy soil.
When they get too much water, the roots of geraniums can swell and become damaged. Once that happens, they can’t take in water or nutrients properly. Even when you use the best fertilizer for geraniums and in the right amount!
One sign of too much water is yellowing leaves. Many gardeners see the yellow leaves and assume the plant needs more water, but doing that only makes the problem worse. The best way to avoid this is to always check the soil before watering.
Let the top couple inches of the soil dry out before watering again. If you’re unsure, a moisture meter can help. If the reading shows more than 25% moisture, wait a day or two before watering again. And when you do water, do it deeply. Affiliate Link: XLUX Long Probe Deep Use Soil Moisture Meter.
Here’s to using the best way to fertilize your geraniums for flowering this year – and to healthy blooming plants all summer long! Happy Gardening, Jim & Mary.
Old World Garden Farms
Jim and Mary Competti have been writing gardening, DIY and recipe articles and books for over 15 years from their 46 acre Ohio farm. The two are frequent speakers on all things gardening and love to travel in their spare time.
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