Unitil today I didn’t know that my almost four feet tall geraniums were called pillar geraniums, though of course I knew that while still geraniums, they were certainly different from the compact or trailing varieties generally seen in the nurseries around here! These very tall and hardy beauties (they endure some snow and freezing weather here) with large fuzzy leaves were started from cuttings that I took from the garden of a friend who had passed away. Though I really just did it on a whim and had no idea if my foot plus cuttings would actually root, but they did!
So now, even though my watering system failed while I was away for a month, and I couldn’t do much as far as trimming or planting new cuttings during the shemittah year in Israel, my two pots of pillar geraniums are looking pretty good, I must say! I love the fact that they have that wild overgrown garden look punctuated with gorgeous flowers. (They do need to be staked though or grown in tomato hoops, or they will fall over and not look too great.) And to think, I used to turn my nose up at geraniums for being too simple. Now I know better fortunately!
And for those of you who live in regions with snow, pillar geraniums in containers can be overwintered in a garage by cutting the plant down to just its trunk and putting the plant into a dormant stage with little to no watering during this time.
And here is a side view of my original pillar geranium container which fills a little niche to one side of my garden. Truthfully I really should get a larger container but these guys really aren’t all that particular, so for now with so many other plants needing my attention I think we’ll just leave it as it is!
Leave a Reply