Care For Geraniums

'Secret' Covington garden offers respite for retiree

"That was my favorite job," she said. "I was so amazed at what the animals ate."

She and Mann had met years earlier, when she was the secretary of Parham Werlein, vice president of Werlein's for Music, and Mann sold organs at the store.

"Harold was married back then, but he and his wife split up," she said.

She and Mann dated for several years, but never married. She even bought a BMW, thinking it might win his heart. Instead, it won hers.

"It was my first new car, and I kept it for 34 years," she said.

After decades of living separate lives, Sprunk and Mann got back together again. That weekend, she had driven across the lake because they were planning a trip to Europe.

"I came over here with clothes for three days and a few pills," she said. "I've been here ever since."

She stayed with Mann for five weeks after Katrina.

"I found out my house had flooded, and the water had killed everything -- my Mardi Gras costumes, my furniture, half my music and my paintings," she said.

When she learned the condominium next to Mann's was for sale, she decided to buy it and start over.

"Anyway, here I am," she said.

A VIEW IN NEED OF HELP: The little place suited her needs, but the view outside her back window was depressing.

THE HOME: A condominium near Covington, in an area that was once part of Louis Prima's Pretty Acres Golf Course.

THE OWNERS: Gwen Sprunk

THE SPACE: Her fenced-in 18-by-20-foot backyard, which she turned from 'dead dirt, roots and rocks' into a secret garden -- a colorful, whimsical collection of potted annuals, bushes, ferns, trees and hanging baskets

WHY SHE LOVES IT: 'It's just a little bit of nature, and it lets me create something,' she says. 'It gives me a place to work, and it brightens my day.'

"It was nothing," she said. "It was not even a patio. It was just dead dirt."

So, with the help of a landscaper friend, she set about bringing the 18-by-20-foot space to life.

"We brought in a lot of dirt and sand, but mostly I have things in pots," Sprunk said.

The centerpiece is a sousaphone with an aloe vera plant springing out of it, surrounded by spider plants. A trombone, a French horn and trumpets are draped around the wooden privacy fence she had built to enclose the space.

Problems With Geraniums – Over Care | Zone10.com

Many people have written and ask why they can’t get geraniums to grow good for them and to bloom good. I think in most cases it is too much fussy care. Try giving your geraniums a little neglect. Of course they respond to care, but don’t over do it. Don’t over water. Let the soil become thoroughly dry and then give them a good soaking.

In California they grow and thrive as easy as weeds. Many are large shrubs and they are given lots of neglect as most people after spending years around them get to the stage where they take geraniums for granted.

These geraniums that insist on growing and blooming all the time are not pampered. Another mistake is overfeeding your geraniums. As long as you have nice green healthy foliage they do not want food. If the foliage puts on a yellowish cast then it is because they want food. Too much food promotes lots of leggy soft growth and very few blooms. If you are having trouble growing geraniums this may be your trouble. Try growing them this way and see if you aren’t more successful. Use one half teaspoonful of commercial fertilizer to a five or six inch pot, not oftener than every two months. Sprinkle this on the ground in your pot and then water and the water will carry this down to the roots.

Training slender-stemmed plants to a treelike or standard form is not a new gardening technique. But have you tried it with geraniums? One of the most striking garden displays imaginable is that of a half dozen pots of standard shell pink geraniums against a background of blue iris, double red varieties against a white fence [...]

Summary: Summertime puts geraniums in the spotlight! Many different varieties create a blaze of bloom in window boxes, gardens and containers. It is time to add geraniums to your garden collection. Summertime is geranium time! It is the season not only to enjoy geraniums’ full blaze of bloom in window boxes and garden, and to [...]

What do you think when geraniums are mentioned? Florists and gardeners in frostless or near frostless regions probably visualize the showy pelargonium or one of its ilk. But speak of geraniums to the gardener of the Northwest or of England or to many an eastern gardener and he will refer to the hardy geraniums or [...

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