The best soil for pelargoniums is a mellow fibrous loam with good well-rotted stable manure or leaf-mould in about the proportion of one-fifth; when used it should not be sifted, but pulled to pieces by the hand, and as much sand should be added as will allow the water to pass freely through it. The large-flowered and fancy kinds cannot bear so much water as most soft-wooded plants, and the latter should have a rather lighter soil.
All the pelargoniums are readily increased by cuttings made from the shoots when the plants are headed down after flowering, or in the spring, when they will root freely in a temperature of 65° to 70°. They must not be kept too close, and must be very moderately watered. When rooted they may be moved into well-drained 3-in. pots, and when from 6 to 8 in. high, should have the points pinched out in order to induce them to push out several shoots nearer the base. These shoots are, when long enough, to be trained in a horizontal direction; and when they have made three joints they should have the points again pinched out. These early-struck plants will be ready for shifting into 6-in. pots by the autumn, and should still be trained outwards. The show varieties after flowering should be set out of doors in a sunny spot to ripen their wood, and should only get water enough to keep them from flagging. In the course of two or three weeks they will be ready to cut back within two joints of where these were last stopped, when they should be placed in a frame or pit, and kept close and dry until they have broken. When they have pushed an inch or so, turn them out of their pots, shake off the old soil, trim the straggling roots, and repot them firmly in smaller pots if practicable; keep them near the light, and as the shoots grow continue to train them outwardly. They require to be kept in a light house, and to be set well up to the glass; the night temperature should range about 45°; and air should be given on all mild days, but no cold currents allowed, nor more water than is necessary to keep the soil from getting parched. The young shoots should be topped about the end of October, and when they have grown an inch or two beyond this, they may be shifted into 7-in. pots for flowering. The shoots must be kept tied out so as to be fully exposed to the light. If required to flower early they should not be stopped again; if not until June they may be stopped in February.
The zonal varieties, which are almost continuous bloomers, are of much value as decorative subjects; they seldom require much pruning after the first stopping. For winter flowering, young plants should be raised from cuttings about March, and grown on during the summer, but should not be allowed to flower. When blossoms are required, they should be placed close up to the glass in a light house with a temperature of 65°, only just as much water being given as will keep them growing. For bedding purposes the zonal varieties are best struck towards the middle of August in the open air, taken up and potted or planted in boxes as soon as struck, and preserved in frames or in the greenhouse during winter.
The fancy varieties root best early in spring from the half-ripened shoots; they are slower growers, and rather more delicate in constitution than the zonal varieties, and very impatient of excess of water at the root.
GERARD (d. 1108), archbishop of York under Henry I., began his career as a chancery clerk in the service of William Rufus. He was one of the two royal envoys who, in 1095, persuaded Urban II. to send a legate and Anselm’s pallium to England. Although the legate disappointed the king’s expectations, Gerard was rewarded for his services with the see of Hereford (1096). On the death of Rufus he at once declared for Henry I., by whom he was nominated to the see of York. He made difficulties when required to give Anselm the usual profession of obedience; and it was perhaps to assert the importance of his see that he took the king’s side on the question of investitures. He pleaded Henry’s cause at Rome with great ability, and claimed that he had obtained a promise, on the pope’s part, to condone the existing practice of lay investiture. But this statement was contradicted by Paschal, and Gerard incurred the suspicion of perjury. About 1103 he wrote or inspired a series of tracts which defended the king’s prerogative and attacked the oecumenical pretensions of the papacy with great freedom of language. He changed sides in 1105, becoming a stanch friend and supporter of Anselm. Gerard was a man of considerable learning and ability; but the chroniclers accuse him of being lax in his morals, an astrologer and a worshipper of the devil.
See the Tractatus Eboracenses edited by H. Bochmer in Libelli de lite Sacerdotii et Imperii, vol. iii. (in the Monumenta hist. Germaniae, quarto series), and the same author’s Kirche und Staat in England und in der Normandie (Leipzig, 1899).
(H. W. C. D.)
GERARD (c. 1040-1120), variously surnamed Tum, Tunc, Tenque or Thom, founder of the order of the knights of St John of Jerusalem (q.v.), was born at Amalfi about the year 1040. According to other accounts Martigues in Provence was his birthplace, while one authority even names the Château d’Avesnes in Hainaut. Either as a soldier or a merchant, he found his way to Jerusalem, where a hospice had for some time existed for the convenience of those who wished to visit the holy places. Of this institution Gerard became guardian or provost at a date not later than 1100; and here he organized that religious order of St John which received papal recognition from Paschal II. in 1113, by a bull which was renewed and confirmed by Calixtus II. shortly before the death of Gerard in 1120.