Pelargoniums

Pelargoniums can think! Honestly.

Want proof? OK. It's the only explanation I can find to what happens every fall.

In the summertime my pelargoniums spend their time in pots outside. As fall comes and the temperature gets colder they need to get inside. As I never have been bothered to follow every piece of wise advise the gardening magazines provide regarding how to let your pelargoniums spend their winter, I simply lift them inside and let them spend the winter by the window as any other kind of indoor plants.

And this is where it happens. The old plants, i.e. the ones that have lived through at least one winter, immediately start to spring new, light green leaves. A good strategy to handle the poor winter light. The rookies, however, don't. They keep their dark, green outside leaves and thus struggle. Normally the dark green leaves turn more and more yellow and somewhere in February they get the idea and start to spring light green 'low light leaves'. The next fall they have learnt to spring light green leaves the moment they are brought indoors.

Makes me wonder: How do they learn?