GARDENING:
Bountiful and headily fragrant, pelargoniums are perfect for summer
Everyone knows pelargoniums. We plant millions of them every summer and keep scented-leaf varieties on winter windowsills.
But how well do you know this diverse plant family? Most of the popular varieties were developed from just three species. But there are at least 240 wild pelargonium species.
Many are weedy things, of interest only to botanists. But some beauties, almost all native to South Africa, make enchanting plants. The best of those have been crossed to develop some outstanding varieties.
I’ve trialled some of those in recent years and can tell you we’re missing a trick. There are both new and old varieties which deserve to be much more popular. They’re all easy to grow and the best make superb container plants. Traditional zonal and regal pelargoniums can be a bit too upright and unrelaxed. But there are lesserknown varieties whose semispreading habits are perfect for large containers.
Scarlet Pet — my favourite — has lacy mid-green leaves and a constant run of little red blooms. The petals shed discreetly, making dead-heading a thing of the past. you’re unlikely to find Scarlet Pet in garden centres but the rHS plant finder lists five suppliers (rhs.org.uk).
SCENTED FOLIAGE
SIMIlAr in habit, lara Starshine has gently fragrant leaves and a constant run of veined, pink flowers. This year I’ve planted eight in an old cattle drinking tank.
They’ll quickly fill it and flow over the sides. Scented leaf geraniums have been loved as houseplants for centuries. Many smell lemony but others include mint-scented P. tomentosum, musky ‘royal oak’ and rosescented P. capitatum.
The most popular, but least spectacular is P. graveolens. The deeply-divided, lemon-rose scented leaves are sage-green, alongside small mauve flowers.
My top performer, though, is a variety called Clorinda which is tall, spready and gorgeous. The lobed leaves are gently scented and the large flower clusters are a rosy lilac. For a monster pot, this is the one.
Two good nurseries come to mind. Fibrex (fibrex.co.uk) and the Suffolk nursery Woottens Plants (woottensplants.com).
FABULOUS FLOWERS
WITH well-composed containers, foliage is as important as flowers — sometimes more so. Some pelargoniums have modestly handsome leaves but spectacular flowers.
With others, such as lady Plymouth, it works the other way. Grown in full light, she has deeply divided cream-and-green foliage, set off by scores of little mauve flowers.
Several wild pelargoniums make characterful additions.
P. exstipulatum is a semi-desert sub-shrub from South Africa’s little Karoo. Pink flowers nestle among the eucalyptus-scented blue-grey leaves. From the eastern Cape, Pelargonium sidoides has gorgeous silky leaves and dark maroon flowers on longlasting sprays.
Besides minority interest species there are gorgeous old varieties to cherish.
Madame Salleron develops small green and ivory tussocks, but never flowers. We haven’t even mentioned stately regal pelargoniums, best of which is the tall-growing lord Bute whose petals are darker than vintage port.