Scented Geraniums

Scented geraniums are like regular geraniums and they like

* Full hot sunshine for 6 hours / day. Because they do not flower like a regular annual geranium, they can grow with far fewer hours of sunshine than the heavier flowering types. By “do not flower”, I mean the flowers are smaller and not particularly showy. They do flower but you won’t be impressed with them from over 10 feet away.

* Decent soil with good drainage. In other words, if you grow them in poor soil, you’ll get poor growth. These are not particularly like other herbal plants that want to be abused or grown on poor ground to concentrate the oils in their leaves. Grow this plant on poor soils or heavy clays and you’ll simply get poor plants.

*Food. This is a geranium and it likes to be fed. If you want to see bumper growth, then I’d recommend a weekly feeding with a liquid fish emulsion.

* Scented geraniums slip or propagate from tender tip cuttings just like any other geranium and with a little bottom heat, you’ll have lots of them. Propagate in spring whacking back the mother plant so it will be compact and full of shoots. Without this annual spring pruning (or more often if necessary), many of these scented geraniums turn rather ugly and sparse.

* Scented geraniums grow quite well in containers and can be easily overwintered indoors. The major pest seems to be whitefly but occasionally you’ll see aphids or spider mites. And insecticidal soap controls whitefly quite well.

* Scented geraniums will get rather leggy in the winter without supplemental lighting so do prune heavily in March approximately 6-8 weeks before they are to be put outside. Root the tip cuttings.

Note that scented geraniums are not grown for their flowers as these are often insignificant compared to zonal geraniums – but rather they are grown for their fragrant leaves.

The lemon scented ones are most often used for cooking as they have the heaviest fragrance/taste. The others tend to be on the minty side.

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Here are a few common varieties (there a significantly more) along with a few comments from the ones I’ve grown.

* Almond
* Apple
* Apricot
* Attar Of Roses
* Blandford
* Brilliant
* Charity
* Chocolate-Mint has a very powerful mint fragrance that some gardeners say has chocolate tones. I’ve never been able to smell the chocolate. But it does have a dark, purple streaked leaf if that appeals to you.
* Cinnamon
* Citrosa is the geranium that is supposed to keep mosquitoes away. Right! And I have a bridge I can sell you. Research says no as well but it does have a powerful lemon fragrance and it is really easy to grow – turning into a weed in fertile pots.
* Clorinda
* Coconut
* Fernleaf
* Filbert
* Fingerbowl Lemon has a very strong lemon scent and very small “crisped” leaves and a stiff upright habit. I have actually used it in fingerbowls and got bonus points from guests for doing so. :-)
* Frensham Lemon is a strong grower with good lemon fragrance.
* Ginger
* Gooseberry
* Gray Lady Plymouth has a good rose fragrance and deeply cut grey-green leaves with narrow white border variegation.
* Joy Lucille
* Knotted Geranium
* Lime has a good lime scent if grown a little hungry. Small deep green leaves make it an attractive plant.
* Mabel Grey
* Mrs. Kingsley
* Mrs. Taylor
* Nutmeg is a small plant with a spicy fragrance with hints of nutmeg in the fragrance.
* Old Fashion Rose
* Old Spice
* Peach
* Peacock
* Peppermint
* Pine
* Prince Of Orange is a compact and one of the better flowering plants. Orange tones in the spicy fragrance.
* Prince Rupert is a ruffled leaf variety with good lemon fragrance.
* Pungent Peppermint
* Rober's Lemon-Rose
* Rose
* Scarlet Unique
* Skeleton-Rose
* Staghorn Oak
* Strawberry (Countess of Scarborough is another name this plant is know by) It has smallish, crisp leaves with strawberry-tones.
* Swarlberg Geranium
* Variegated Mint-Rose
* Variegated Nutmeg
* Variegated Oak
* Variegated Prince Rupert has variegated, ruffled leaves and a good lemon fragrance.

These and the other scented geranium varieties make a wonderful addition to the container plant collection and brushing against the leaves with your hand can perfume both the hand and the indoor room for several minutes.

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