help with my Geranium

[utakecare]

Hi, Could someone help me to take a look at my geraniums? I had three of this kind(this color?) and it just does not grow well. One already died. This one...I do not know, the leaves are changing colors. Some on top are dark dark green, almost black and the bottoms are yellow, light brown, red. No new leaves are growing. What could be the problem?

[img]https://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/bb469/utakecare/P10100132.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/bb469/utakecare/P1010014.jpg[/img]

Here is another one(below), leave color is a lot better but no new leaves are growing
[img]https://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/bb469/utakecare/P1010008.jpg[/img]

I am frustrated and by searching internet, Geranium should be very easy to grow??


The red one in front yard is a little better, see below. But again, the leaves are red, light brown, not very healthy to me. Am I worring too much? Are those branches too close to the dirt? Is that bad?
[img]https://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/bb469/utakecare/P1010001.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/bb469/utakecare/P1010002.jpg[/img]

btw, I am in San Diego and our soil is bad bad, all clay.

thanks

utakecare

[Matthew.Carman]

Utakecare, thoe plants do not look good. Foilage can change colors if it is to hot or to cold or if they are dying. I don't plant Geraniums so I don't know what would work best for them but I can give you some ideas.

You should apply some fertilizer and see if that helps. Check how much water they need and give them more water unless you think you are over watering them. Make sure they are getting enough sunlight if they need it. If you think the soil is the reason they are dying you could try potting soil or humus and put that in with the soil to give them a better chance. You could possibly have a desease killing your plants. I don't think you need to worry about the plant being to close to the dirt. All plants grow and get higher thus being farther away from the dirt and I have never seen that be a problem for plants.

If you live in San Deigo then maybe Exeric plants would work beter for you. These are plants that are best suited for the desert south west and require little water. High Country Gardens is an online mail order site (listed in Daves Garden top 30 mail order sites) that seels mostly xeric plants for the desert south west.

I wish I could be more help but I have never grown a Geranium and I know nothing about them. I can do a google search of mine own when I have more time if nobody else can help.

Take care.

[utakecare]

Thanks Matt.
I got frustrated with online searching cause I always feel unclear about the symptoms. That is why I joined the forum and hope some one can diagnose for me w/ the pictures.
Maybe not many people are growing Geranium? It is pretty popular here in San Diego...
utc

[cynthia_h]

Most of our members look on the left side of the messages to see *where* a member lives before offering advice. This is a very international forum, and members are understandably reluctant to offer advice on plants without knowing whether the (in this case) geranium is in Australia, Arizona, Amsterdam, or elsewhere in the world.

This may be one reason why your very reasonable question has received few responses.

It is also my experience that when plants are under stress, fertilizing them with strong fertilizers only makes the stress worse. Giving the plants water if they're dry, perhaps applying low-intensity and slow-release fertilizers, e.g., half-strength kelp dilution or a little compost side dressing, might help, but knowledge of your growing conditions is really the most important factor.

What kind of soil are *these* geraniums in? How much sun do they receive per day? Are they exposed to wind, or are they wind-protected? Do they receive reflected heat from a fence, the outside wall of a house, or other permanent feature? If they're *very close* to the house, they could be suffering from excessive alkalinity in the soil due to a concrete foundation (if that's what the house has).

It's very normal for geranium flowers to turn brown after a short blossoming time. You can just snap them off at the "joint" between the stem and the leaves; this is called "dead-heading" them and will keep the plant from looking shabby.

Have you tested the moisture level in the soil by inserting your finger as far down into the soil as you can? This is often a very good way of learning what the conditions are that the plant's roots are contending with: are they dry? are they boggy due to poor drainage? etc.

Check the plants and their growing conditions with the questions I've posed in mind and let us help you better by providing more specific information. I'm sure there's plenty of good help just around the corner.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[rainbowgardener]

To start with, I would snap or clip off ALL of the flower heads. You bought these plants fairly recently? In the nursery, they force blooming to make the plant look appealing. But it takes energy from the plants to bloom so much. Those are small plants to make so many flowers. The third one down especially is very tiny to be blooming, but all of them are small. So cut off all the flowers and let the plants just grow for awhile, until they are doing better.

Second, as much as I can tell from looking at the picture, your soil does not look real good. Hard and dry. They like well-aerated, porous, loose soil and they don't like heavy clay. So you might need to trowel in some potting soil around them and loosen everything up. Are they getting enough water? Geraniums love water. It is hard to over water them, as long as the soil drains so that the roots aren't sitting in water/mud.

Finally, the top picture looks like the plant is sitting right in front of a light colored concrete wall? That can be a very tough location - the concrete reflects a lot of heat back at the plant.

Agree with cynthia - don't add chemical fertilizers to a plant that is already struggling. You can give it some added nutrients once it is putting out new green growth again.

[lily51]

It looks like a mineral deficiency, either from the soil or the water.
The red color on bottom leaves shows a magnesium deficiency. I had this problem with seed geraniums in my greenhouse due to our well water I found out. The fertilizer I was using did not contain Mg, so they weren't getting any of this major nutrient.

Geraniums are heavy feeders to begin with, plus need extra magnesium.
They need fertilized each week to stay healthy.

A treatment that worked last year and this was 1 tsp Essom salt in 2 gallons of water, then water with this. I only used it one time, but mine were not as bad as yours. I would try once,then wait a couple weeks or so to see if there's any improvement. The treatment can be overdone!

Epsom salt (Magnesium sulfate) is a naturally occuring mineral and has had many uses over many years.

I now have fertilizer, Peter's, that contains this mineral. It isn't always easy to find, but maybe you can find another fertilizer with Mg in it.
I will be fertilizing my geraniums with it from now on and in the future.

[cynthia_h]

I did not know fertilizer on a stressed plant was a bad idea.

Ps. Utakecare, Geraniums are popular here to but I always thought they were only annuals which is why I never thought about purchasing one.

1) Re. fertilizer: The fertilizer will stimulate new growth in the upper structure of the plant without any regard as to whether the roots or vascular system can actually support that new growth. This can lead to the death of the plant from the imbalance.

2) Re. annual/perennial status of geraniums: DH and I purchased this house in 1997. There were pink geraniums in front of the house. We have never planted, divided, or even tended those particular geraniums (maybe 10 sq. ft. in a difficult location). We still have pink geraniums. In 2006 or so, I purchased nine individual red geranium plants to plant in a triangular pattern on the south side of the house. Eight of them are absolutely flourishing. The one on the southern apex of the triangle is struggling, because from October to early March it doesn't get enough sunlight; the next-door house's illegal addition is too tall and blocks the sun. But, yes, the red geraniums have flourished to the extent that I've had to cut them back to keep them from taking over the veggie boxes they're next to. Every now and then, I'll dead-head them for 15 or 20 minutes, just to let them know I care.

Cynthia

[rainbowgardener]

Pelargoniums, sold as geraniums, are a tender perennial, hardy to zone 9 or so. In warm climates like that they can stay out all the time. For the rest of us, they are often grown as annuals, but can be overwintered indoors. I have had a geranium sit on a windowsill and bloom all winter.

[thanrose]

My 92 year old aunt in Nebraska has always kept her pelargoniums year to year. When she was in New Jersey, she would lift them from their beds before the first real frost, and hang upside down in her basement with whatever soil clung to the roots until they showed signs of growing again. Then she'd prune them, and plant them with fresh compost for another year of growth. OTOH, I doubt she moved the New Jersey plants to Nebraska, so what she has now can't be older than 8 years old.

Mine are in a pot, have been for maybe five years. After the first two years of nonstop blooming they began to fade with smaller paler leaves and too few blooms. I thought about writing my aunt and asking what she would do until I had a V-8 moment. Duh! Hers were reinvigorated every year! Prune, repot, and give them a spa. Eureka.

They also can grow from cuttings pretty well if you have a particular one you like. One of mine has an almost neon pink bloom that I like.

The red leaves in the OP are what I will usually see at the bottom of a too neglected planter of them. I attribute several of them at one time to underfeeding, underwatering, and under pruning of dead leaves. I find those leaves are already toast, with a similar coloration to autumn leaves. They come off rather easily because that's what leaves at the end of their life cycle should do.