Geranium Blog

Flowers In Her Hair

P. limoneum is downright seductive with her wild, windblown hair. She is a heavy bloomer and produces seed. The best news about this scented geranium is that it is super-easy to grow and very heat tolerant.

Heat Tolerant Scented Geraniums For Desert Dwelling Gardeners

Desert dwelling gardeners face a daunting array of problems. Triple digit temperatures, high winds, low humidity all create difficult challenges. Zonal geraniums have a rough time in the Las Vegas summer. What about the scenteds? Good news: Many scented geraniums live happily with our weather extremes.

I thought a list of the most heat tolerant and trouble free would be useful. Everything on this list I have grown for over a year in Southern Nevada. They perform well with only the basic care - no special treatment. (Basic care is defined as water, fertilizer, repotting as needed and half day of sun.) This list is not meant to be definitive and will most certainly grow longer in the future.

Heat Tolerant Scented Geraniums For Desert Gardeners:

• Pelargonium 'Attar of Roses' (rose)
• P. crispum (lemon)
• P. crispum 'Minor' (lemon)
• P. 'Dr. Livingstone' (lemon-rose)
• P. grossularioides (coconut)
• P. limoneum (lemon-lime)
• P. lucaeflora (rose)
• P. ionidiflorum (celery)
• P. 'Mint Scented Rose' (mint)
• P. odoratissimum (apple)
• P. 'Old Scarlet Unique' (pungent)
• P. 'Orange' (orange)
• P. 'Roller's Satinique' (pungent)
• P. 'Sandalwood' (woodsy)
• P. 'Strawberry' (strawberry)

Which worthy, hardworking young scented geraniums will make it to the Heat Tolerant List next? What pitfalls await them? Which scented geraniums have been "deselected" from the List? And why, why, why? You'll read it all here first.

Lime Scented Geranium Roundup

How do the three Limes compare? P. limoneum is the most heat tolerant of the three. P. 'Lime' and P. 'Pink Champagne' dislike those ultra high desert temperatures, however they can be grown successfully in the desert with a little extra shade and close attention to prevent excessive dryness. Tough little Limoneum will lose a few leaves if over dry, but is otherwise hardly effected. It can handle more exposure to direct sun than the other two.

The best bloomer of the Limes is Pink Champagne. In fact, it might be one of the nicest bloomers of all the Pelargoniums! Lime is a very good bloomer as well. Limoneum is cute with smaller hot pink flowers.

All three are well scented, although I think P.'Lime' is a bit stronger than the other two.

Lime Scented Geranium Extraordinaire

Limoneum is a lime scented geranium with small leaves and a charming bad-hair-day way of growing. Always fun to look at and very tolerant, P. limoneum should be more widely cultivated.

How Hot Pink Do You Want It?

P. limoneum might have the pinkest flower ever. The roundish top petals give them a fat-cheeked look. The flowers are smallish - about a 1/2" across. The serrated leaves are small as well on thin woody stems that reach 2 feet in length.

P. limoneum looks nice displayed in an elevated position so the stems can hang down. It has the same free spirit quality as P. 'Strawberry'. In fact, those two look great together.

Seed Patrol

A few warm days and like magic, the seeds appear! This afternoon I harvested seeds from Pelargonium 'Cinnamon', P. ionidiflorum (Celery), Coconut, Apple and a couple of zonals.

New Scented Geraniums - Part 1 of 3

Pelargonium 'Finger Bowl Lemon', P. crispum (lemon scented), P.'Cinnamon' (L to R)

I ordered some new plants from Mountain Valley Growers. I was very pleased with what I received. The plants were in 2 1/2" pots but nice and big. The plants were all labeled with stickers on the pots.

So what did I get? Nine scented geraniums! Here is another view of the geraniums above:

Pelargonium 'Finger Bowl Lemon', P. crispum (lemon scented), P.'Cinnamon' (L to R)

P. 'Finger Bowl Lemon' - Upright plant with very tiny serrated and ruffled leaves. Strong lemon scent.

P. crispum - Upright plant with small serrated and ruffled leaves. Lemon scent.

P. 'Cinnamon' - Upright plant with small wavy serrated leaves. Cinnamon scent.