Popular pot flower geranium

Geraniums come from southern Africa and settled in China more than a hundred years ago. It is full of flowers, plump into a ball, pleasing to the eye, north and south can adapt, throughout thousands of families. Put the outdoor shade environment in the hot season and watch it in the bright indoor in the cold season. "May Day", "National Day", New Year's Day and the Spring Festival can all open in time, and the flowering period is very long.

Pelargonium alias Hydrangea, into wax red, is an evergreen subshrub of the genus Pelargoniaceae, the young plant is herbaceous, succulent, the old plant is semi-lignified, and the pulp heart is empty. The whole plant has a unique smell. Leaves alternate, orbicular, reniform or flabellate, palmately lobed. Umbels grow at the top of twigs, with long peduncles and fine hairs. Involucral bracts contain several to dozens of florets, including white, pink, pink, flesh red, bright red, lavender and double colors, single and double varieties, and variants of colored leaves with yellow, white, purple and other markings on the leaf surface.

There are many kinds of geraniums, including horseshoe geranium (hydrangea, with a purplish brown halo in the middle of the leaf), trailing geranium (climbing vine hydrangea), large flower geranium (foreign butterfly, hybrid first-season flower variety), fragrant leaf geranium (fragrant leaves, stems and leaves contain geraniol and vanilla alcohol), aromatic geranium (musk geranium, small white flowers, containing aromatic oil Hand touches the leaf to send out the fragrance), the chrysanthemum leaf geranium, the stem has long hair, the leaf is nearly triangular, 2 pinnately parted, florescence in summer.

Most of the geranium flowers are native to the Cape of good Hope in South Africa, with a mild climate and a refreshing environment. Winter is afraid of cold and air-dry, summer is afraid of hot and humid heat, suitable growth temperature is 15 ℃ to 20 ℃. The plant should not be less than 5 ℃ in winter and dormant or semi-dormant in 25 ℃ upward in summer. It needs to be maintained in shade environment in high temperature (above 25 ℃) and light in low temperature (below 20 ℃). Neutral sandy culture soil with loose, fertile and permeable humus is required. The basin soil should be moisturized a little dry, do not accumulate water for a long time and rain and waterlogging. Geraniums are usually propagated by cuttings, and they are easy to survive in spring and autumn. In early March, combined with pruning in the indoor pot, the survival rate is high, and it can flourish and blossom in autumn of that year. The autumn blossoms in the following spring. After May, the high temperature is accompanied by more humidity, the survival rate of cutting is low, and it is often easy to rot. Cuttings of both new and old branches can survive, but with annual strong branches cut from some branches, the wound is small, the callus is quick, and it is easy to survive. The cuttings are 7 cm to 8 cm long, keep the top 1 to 2 leaflets, flatten the basal nodes with a sharp knife, and insert them into clean fine sand, 3 cm deep. Water thoroughly 4 hours after insertion, and keep the basin soil moist after that, not too dry or too wet. Put it in a warm and bright place in the room in early spring. The root can be rooted in about 1 month at room temperature of about 20 ℃. Then, the seedlings were raised in a small pot on the ordinary culture soil, and white roots emerged from the pots when the seedlings grew strong. Some broken hooves were padded under the fertilized culture soil as base fertilizer, and then planted in chrysanthemum bucket pots.

The geranium grows fast and needs to change the basin to increase soil and fertilizer once a year, usually in early spring from February to early March, first strong pruning, leaving only three lateral buds at the base of each branch, and then taking off the surrounding old roots, replacing the new fertilized culture soil and applying base fertilizer. After the new branches were issued in the first ten days of April, the dilute organic liquid fertilizer was applied once a week, and flowered one after another when it was removed from the outside in the last ten days. Move to the scattered light on the inside of the balcony in early June. Courtyard maintenance is transferred to the shade, the east side of the house, or under the shade. Pay attention to small basin soil surface whitening, large basin soil surface 1 cm under the tide when watering. High temperature from July to August should often spray water to cool down, keep the surrounding environment moist, do not accumulate water in the basin. Before the arrival of the early frost in the middle of October, the room temperature in winter was not less than 12 ℃, the light was sufficient, the air was fresh, and the flowers bloomed continuously. Professional cultivation for "May Day" festival for a large number of flowers, can be re-pruned at the end of autumn, into a low greenhouse (less than 10 ℃), maintain sufficient light, water control, moderate ventilation and maintenance. With the natural heating up in spring, the plant grows and develops healthily, and it can blossom at the node.