Cheap bags of geranium seeds are often available online, in gardening and hardware stores. This means you can grow your own summer splendor of geraniums for balcony boxes and pots without having to buy the plants for expensive money later. With our instructions you can also successfully grow geraniums!
How do you sow geranium seeds correctly?
To sow geranium seeds successfully, you need nutrient-poor potting soil and should place the seeds in planters around the end of January or beginning of February. Light germinators require a thin layer of substrate and good lighting conditions at 20-22 °C for germination. The seeds should germinate after 10-20 days.
Sowing geranium seeds
To ensure that your geraniums continue to bloom this summer, you should sow them very early in the year - ideally in January, but at the beginning of February at the latest. Use nutrient-poor and germ-free potting soil for cultivation (€6.00 on Amazon).
- Sow the geranium seeds in planters with potting soil.
- Alternatively, you can also plant individual seeds in small seed pots,
- then save yourself the trouble of pricking later.
- Geraniums germinate in light, so only sift a thin layer of substrate over the grains.
- Place the planters in an indoor greenhouse
- or cover with clear film.
- The seeds germinate best at temperatures between 20 and 22 °C.
- So put the vessels in a bright and warm place.
Geranium seeds usually germinate within 10 to 20 days.
Care for seedlings properly
Once the seeds have sprouted, you should ventilate them regularly, otherwise the seedlings will begin to rot. At first just open the ventilation slots, then after a few days also remove the lid of the planter - initially for an hour a day, later longer. You should also put the seedlings in a cooler place, otherwise they will start to rot. Then they only form long and weak shoots, which later bear no flowers. Temperatures around 15 °C are ideal - so don't necessarily put it on the windowsill above the heater.
- You can prick out the young geraniums as soon as they have four leaves.
- Now you can transplant them into a larger pot with nutrient-rich compost soil.
- The shoot tip is broken off as soon as the young plant is around 20 centimeters high.
- This stimulates branching and ensures that the geranium develops many shoots.
- You can fertilize – carefully! – start about four to six weeks after germination.
- Make sure to always keep seedlings and young plants slightly moist
- Spraying is always better than watering.
Tip
Hard off the young plants before finally putting them outdoors. To do this, you should put the geraniums out as soon as it is warm and sunny enough and no more frost is expected - but initially only for a few hours. Extend these times from day to day until the plants eventually stay outside overnight.
