Pelargonium australe
I have a new passion – Species Pelargoniums. I started to notice them last year, I think initially in the large greenhouse at Wisley but then they seemed to be appearing more and more in various greenhouses I noticed.
I have grown pelargoniums for years, propagated them from cuttings and even grown them from seed. However, I find my tastes have changed over the years and I am moving away from the big and blowsey more towards the delicate. I had mentioned this on twitter and on my blog and the lovely Pellynut who is a pelargonium addict offered me three small species pelargonium plants that she had going spare. Well it was rude to say no. A small parcel arrived with three small plants all carefully wrapped.
Pelargonium sidoides
The plants were in dinky pots so I potted them up into 3″ terracotta pots and put them in the greenhouse. Over the summer they have bulked up nicely and are now all flowering. I have been waiting for all three to flower so I could do this post but I hadn’t anticipated how hard it was going to be to photograph the tiny delicate flowers – so apologies for the quality.
Not only are the flowers incredibly delicate and pretty but so is the foliage. The leaves on average are not that dissimilar in size to a 10p coin and are generally evergreen. As a bonus pelargonium dicondreafolium has gorgeous scented leaves, a sort of spearmint scent.
Pelargonium dicondreafolium
A bit of research via the links on Pellynut’s website shows that species pelargonium originate in South Africa and come from a range of habitats ranging from the coast to high in the mountains. They are tender plants often not surviving much below 2C degrees. The trouble is that looking at the various nurseries that stock these little beauties my wish list keeps growing. Should I go for the pelargonium gibbosum with its pretty yellow-green flowers or for something more brash such as pelargonium fulgidum which has bright red flowers. Then of course there are quite a few to choose from in between. Luckily they are quite small plants so despite having a small greenhouse I still have space for quite a few of these beauties.
