Famous blood-red geranium

Blood red geranium (in other sources, blood red) is a variety of perennial, grassy plants of the genus Geranium of the Geranium family.

Blood red geranium has a long, knobby, fleshy root. Growing, the bush acquires a magnificent, very beautiful, spherical shape with a height of 10 to 50 centimeters and a width of half a meter. Without transplantation and division, it can grow up to 15 years. It blooms very abundantly and for a long time.

Geranium is widely used in medicine. In a culture known since the 16th century.

Botanical Description

Blood red geranium - perennial with a rather fat and fleshy rhizome. When flowering, a street plant forms a magnificent rich picture in the garden. The period of growth and development is quite long. Only one generation of leaves grows in one season. They are able to winter, but according to other sources, it is better to leave geraniums overwinter without green leaves.

Reference! The stems reach a height of 20-50 centimeters, usually covered with long hairs. The base of the stems and lower leaves by the fall most often blush. The leaves are also covered with hairs, divided into several deep lobules.

The flowers bloom one at a time, two at a time, the petals on them are oblong, blood-red. Fruits have the properties of crushing and disintegrating into single-seed parts. Bloody red geranium blooms in June-July; fruiting begins in August-September. According to other sources, it blooms from mid-June to the very end of August. Occasionally, a plant forms self-seeding. Self-sowing plants bloom in the second year.

Popular varieties

We list the most common geranium varieties in Russia.

Maverick

Maverick - the most diverse variety in terms of colors and shades. Despite its small height (20-30 cm), it has rather large inflorescences (up to 15 cm). Has beautiful two-tone hemispherical flowers. Suitable for both outdoor and home use. It calmly tolerates temperature fluctuations.

Horizon

It has a surprisingly long flowering, so it is ideal for landscaping. The flower has a two-tone, decorated with white eyes. The bush is very compact, suitable for hanging flower pots. Another plus of this variety - sprouts very quickly: within one week.

Bulls Eye

Bulls Ai - Extremely unpretentious geranium. However, it is more suitable for growing at home.

Mint Chocolate

It has a distinctive appearance from other varieties due to two-color loose leaves. It has a pronounced mint aroma.

Tornado

Tornado is the only weaving view. Ideal for creating hanging baskets. In addition, it has a slightly audible lemon aroma. This variety of geranium is considered one of the most popular. The flower looks very impressive due to the fact that it grows with large drooping stems, it blooms for a long time and magnificent. The plant has ivy leaves, due to which it looks very impressive.

Photo

Check out the photo of geraniums.

Landing

When choosing a place to land, you should remember that geranium is one of the most unpretentious plants, so it will be accepted both in open ground and in a room pot. Lighting should be 5-6 hours a day, but even these numbers can change by one or two positions in both directions. However, you should not plant sprouts in an open place, where in summer the lighting will be from morning until evening. There is a rule: the main thing is not to overdo it.

Attention! Geranium does not like much moisture and marshy soil, this can cause a variety of diseases. If you decide to plant a flower in an indoor pot, make sure that the pot is spacious for the roots.

Experienced flower growers recommend transplanting in the spring after all winter frosts, then you can expect flowering in the summer. Geranium loves loosened and nutrient-rich soil. Do not forget about it. For each process, select your own "house", the distance between which depends on the variety (from 15 to 60 centimeters).

The pit under the plant should be twice as large as the pot in which it grew. So, for example, from a 20-centimeter pot, the process should be transplanted into a 40-centimeter fossa. If you decide to grow blood red geranium from scratch, that is, from seeds, then plant them directly in the soil. But it will be better if the seeds are first planted in a pot, where the roots grow and strengthen, and then the grown plant can be taken out into the open ground. When you fill the flower with soil, do not fill its stem, as this is fraught with decay of the whole flower.

Care

As mentioned above, geranium is a unpretentious plant and not very loving moist soil, but this does not mean at all that you can safely forget about it, especially in dry periods. On the street, water the flower until the soil is completely moistened, and in a room pot until water begins to pour out of the pot.

Sure, everything alive loves fertilizer and geranium is no exception. Keep this in mind, especially in spring.

Remove dead flowers in time so that the plant can grow again with renewed vigor. Get rid of dry stems (their characteristic feature is brown), so that a fungus does not appear that multiplies on the dead and dry parts of the plant. Every 3-4 years, geranium must be divided. You yourself will see the need for this when the flower expands its boundaries to those that were not planned by you. Separating this green miracle is very simple: for this you need to get it with the roots out of the ground and divide the roots into several parts.

In autumn, it will not be superfluous to cut geraniums, leaving at least two lower leaves. But if you don’t do it before frosts, it will be possible to fix this in early spring.

Important! An exception is the variety of large royal geraniums, to which circumcision can only damage and reduce the abundance of their flowering.

Diseases and Pests

The most common danger for this plant may be waterlogging of the soil, especially at low temperatures. In this case, the leaves wither, yellow spots appear on them. as well as mold caused by fungus. Affected leaves should be removed and the plant should have access to fresh air. Swampy soil can also cause blackening of the legs. This disease is not treated, and the sore spot is removed with the subsequent replacement or tillage.

Often a flower can be attacked by ticks, aphids or whiteflies.. Careful leaf treatment, especially on the underside, with chamomile infusion can help here. After 2-3 hours, be sure to rinse all this off.

But sometimes moisture may not be enough. This will tell you the dry edges of the leaves. The loss and yellowness of the lower leaves indicates a lack of lighting or that it is time to change the pot to a more spacious one. Often the cause of yellow leaves is commonplace: adaptation to a change of place or after transplantation.

Many people ask: why does not the geranium bloom? We answer:

• the plant is cold or not enough light;
• soil is not suitable (you can fix this problem by buying a special substrate for geraniums or by preparing it yourself);
• the pot is very spacious (in this case you can’t worry and do nothing, just wait until the root system fills all the empty space, and then the flow reaches flowering);
• you simply forget to cut geraniums, and timely “haircut” is the key to abundant flowering;
• fertilizers arrive irregularly.

The last nuisance that can happen to geraniums is that it can start to dry. If the geranium started to dry you have two ways out:

1. or water it more often;
2. or save the plant from a fungal disease of rust (characteristic signs - the leaves become reddish-brown, and then dry and fall off): for treatment, the leaves should be sprayed with a five percent solution of Bordeaux fluid or treated twice with phytosporin with a break of 7-10 days.

Breeding

Reproduction of this plant by seeds is not so difficult. Usually, seeds purchased in stores give excellent flowering. However, one should not expect the same effect from seeds collected from their own geraniums, since often hybrid varieties lose their maternal traits during seed propagation. You need to sow seeds in moist moist earth.

It will not be superfluous to treat the seeds with a light solution of potassium permanganate. Before germination, you will need to cover the seeds with glass, thereby forming a greenhouse. After the appearance of the first 5-6 leaves, you can plant processes in pots. In order to propagate geranium cuttings, you need to stock up on shoots of 5-7 centimeters with 2-3 leaves.

Note! Freshly cut stalks must be dried within 24 hours, sprinkled with chopped charcoal, and planted in pots.

Some gardeners recommend strengthening the stalk in coarse sand, while it should always be moist, but in no case should water get on the stem or leaves, this can lead to decay. After the appearance of the roots of the cuttings, boldly plant them in open ground. For open ground, the variety of Garden Geranium Striatum (striatum) is suitable.

Healing properties

Geranium is a plant that can rightfully be called a medicinal. It contains a large amount of tannins (fresh flowers up to 16%), carotene, vitamin C, bitter, tarry, mucous substances and other compounds.

The infusion of herbs helps with diarrhea in both adults and children, with urolithiasis, rheumatism, gout. Helps stop bleeding, is used in inflammatory processes of the oral cavity and for the treatment of skin diseases. With herbal infusions, they take local baths for bone fractures, prepare lotions for cuts and ulcers, as well as ulcers. Broths of geraniums rinse hair with their strong loss. The substances contained in geraniums have analgesic and antiseptic effects, as well as the ability to dissolve salt deposits. Among the contraindications for the use of geraniums are pregnancy, lactation and gastrointestinal problems.

So, if you are looking for an unpretentious flowering plant, which also have many medicinal properties, you simply have to turn your eyes to geraniums. It will delight your eye both in the house and on the street, causing the admiring glances of your guests and just people passing by.

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