No, the ivy geranium climbing vine idea is a myth. The plant does not climb at all, even though the name and the leaf shape both hint at it. An ivy geranium is a trailing geranium that spills downward, so its long stems hang and pour over the edge of whatever holds them. It will never scramble up a wall or grab a trellis the way true ivy does.
"That thing will cover your trellis by August," my neighbor said over the fence. He nodded at the new ivy geranium I had just hung on the balcony. "Just like the ivy on my garage." Two months later the stems had grown a good two feet. Every one of them poured straight down over the rail. Not a single shoot reached for the trellis sitting right beside it.
The confusion comes from the name, and it is a fair mistake to make. The ivy part points to the leaves, not the habit. Ivy geranium leaves are peltate, which means each leaf has a shield shape with the stem joining near the center. They look a lot like English ivy leaves, glossy and lobed. But the resemblance stops at the foliage. The growth style is something else entirely.
Here is the botany that settles it. A climbing plant needs a way to grip. True ivy puts out aerial roots along its stems that dig into brick, bark, and wood. Other vines use tendrils or twining stems to wrap around supports. An ivy geranium has none of these tools. Its stems are long and a little brittle, and they simply lean and drape under their own weight. With nothing to hold on with, the plant has only one direction to go, and that is down.
It helps to keep the two plants in separate boxes in your head. True ivy belongs to the genus Hedera, a woody evergreen that climbs and clings for years and can cover a whole wall. Your ivy geranium is a Pelargonium, a soft trailing plant grown fresh most seasons for its flowers. They share a leaf look and half a name, and that is the whole connection. One climbs and grips. The other just cascades. So when you shop, do not buy an ivy geranium expecting it to do a climbing job.
So plant yours where the falling stems are the point. A cascading geranium earns its keep in a hanging basket, a window box, or along the top rail of a deck or balcony. Give the stems open air below them and you get a thick curtain of leaves and blooms within a few months. Reds, pinks, and soft lavenders are the common colors, and they flower hard all summer when you give them at least 4 to 6 hours of sun. Keep the soil in your container draining well, since soggy roots are the fastest way to lose one of these plants.
Mount your basket or box high enough that the stems can run without touching the ground. As the plant fills in, you can pinch back the longest tips a couple of times in early summer. That keeps the growth full instead of leggy and pushes more side shoots out for a denser fall of color. Feed it every couple of weeks with a balanced liquid fertilizer and you will see steady new flowers right through the warm months.
Do not set yours at the foot of a trellis or a bare wall and wait for it to climb. It will sit there and sulk, and the stems will flop sideways with nowhere good to fall. If you want real wall coverage, plant actual ivy or a true vine and let your geranium do the one thing it is built for. Hang it high, let the stems run free, and you get a tumbling wall of color instead of a climber that never was.
Read the full article: Ivy Geranium Care: Grow Trailing Blooms
