What steps do you take?

Hey "Sherry", not always does "it" work but this is all I do.

• sometime in late October, pre killing frost, I remove the plants from their containers, shaking off all the soil (if the plants are too big with too many branches I will trim some off)
• I put the plants into largish cardboard box(es)(multiple per box if needed), close them up and put the box(es) in any out of the way room (so room temp)(I have never 'spritzed' them with water during their 4 month dormancy period)
• depending out antsy I am ;) I unbox them sometime post Valentine's Day, hoping to see multiple stems that are green and thus alive; lots of stems will be dry and 'hollow' and can be cut off; but if in doubt I leave them.
• I pot them up in damp potting soil and do my best to site them as best I can in a sunny window (which I dont have many :( )

Do you remove the leaves? I lost my greenhouse to huge tree limbs and brought most into the house. The outside pots, I am finding a spot and will use for annuals or herbs/vegetables. Not able to move everything inside and out twice a year. It would be nice to keep geranumins from year to year again.

I do not remove the leaves when putting the plants to sleep. Of course over the dormancy period the leaves will dry out and so just prior to potting them up I quickly and easily remove the shrivelled leaves.

Sherry I am sorry to hear about the loss of your greenhouse. Will you replace it?

It would be nice to keep geranumins from year to year again.

As I have described above, to put away the geraniums is a relatively simple process. You will know if you are successful if you see multiple light green stems come the late winter or early spring. If there are none, the plant is likely dead and no reason to pot it up...so nothing lost.

Sherry that is a very nice piece of furniture even if it wasnt used for plants!

Thank you. It is fake wood like most stuff now,

I also have one of the pipe rods that you hang plants from. It will go over the cabinet at the top of the window. That is still in the box.

I will probably buy one of every color geranium I find!

It is fake wood like most stuff now

It looks perfect for the location and it clearly has multiple uses.

Aw, that stinks to lose the greenhouse, Sherry! Seems like you're taking it well...I probably wouldn't...

I'll pot up my dormant geraniums in a couple weeks -- it's too early right now. Beginning of March is about the time I typically do it. I don't trim back before storage, I just dry off the root mass outside for a couple days if it's too wet, shake off any loose soil, tag them (the color) and throw them into the big garden paper kraft bags for storage in the crawl space.

I trim severely when potting up, lower than what Rouge pictured. I also remove any obviously dead stems, but if I'm not confident enough to call it I'll leave it to see what it does -- it's usually pretty obvious, though.

DH refers to them as "mummy plants" LOL!

About a month later after planting up the dormant geraniums shown above: