Pelargonium - Scented Geranium

Once beloved by Victorian gardeners - and then nearly lost during WWI - Our Sister Farm has been busy growing us these unique Scented Geraniums (Pelargonium) in a range of hard to find fragrances.

These easy to grow plants have remarkably aromatic foliage and small, delicate flowers in a range of colors. Versatile as well as varied, use these plants where they can be brushed up against - in pretty pots next to your front door, tucked along your walkways & paths, and on your patios and decks so you can enjoy all the nose-pleasing delights that they have to offer!

Choose from:

• Attar of Roses which has an amazing scent just like roses.
• Cinnamon with a spicy, cinnamon-y scent.
• Grapefruit which has a citrus-y grapefruit scent.
• Lady Plymouth has a minty strawberry-lemon scent and often has variegated foliage.
• Lemon Dwarf has a lemony citrus scent.
• Mosquito Citronella is perhaps the most famous and well known. It smells remarkably like citronella grass, a most pleasing lemongrass scent.
• Nutmeg with a spicy, earthy scent.

Combine them with Lavender, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme for a wonderful herbal scent-sation, or go the colorful yet low-maintenance route by planting them with annuals such as Calibrachoa and Dichondra. 

🍹Edible! Scented Geraniums can be used to flavor cakes (see recipe below), cocktails, ice cream, iced tea, sugar, and more. They can also be tossed into bathwater and dried for potpourri where they maintain their fragrance for a long time - perfect for linen drawers.

🪴Happy in Pots: They usually cannot handle frosts or freezes, fortunately you can treat them like sun-loving houseplants, and bring them indoors in winter. They are easy to grow in containers and even enjoy being a little potbound - terracotta pots are ideal.

✂️Care tips: If they start to develop lots of woody growth, don't be afraid to cut them back - they'll come back fuller, with fresh, fragrant growth. Pruning them just after they finish their long bloom period in summer can help keep them nicely shaped - useful for flavoring some refreshing iced tea!

🦌Deter deer: Scented Geraniums can deter pests such as deer. Between the scent and the leaf texture, deer do not enjoy these plants and will actively avoid them. You can plant Scented Geraniums among plants that deer do favor.

Full sun. Happiest when kept on the drier side.
1-3'T x 1'2'W.

🌿Plant Nerd: Discovered by Europeans in the 1600s in rocky and dry areas of southern Africa, these plants so excited gardeners that the Dutch East India Company quickly established shipping routes. The plants made their way to Holland, where plant breeders rapidly hybridized them, helping to create the different "fragrance" lines that would be used for the plants available today. Meanwhile across the Atlantic, early colonists found these plants easier to access than exotic herbs, and used them in their cooking as substitutes. The perfume industry jumped on these plants as well, and the British in Kenya starting growing them - particularly the Attar of Roses - at a massive scale. 

At one point there were over 250 varieties, however WWI brought global shortages of many materials/fuel, and production of these plants dramatically dropped. Today there are only about 80 remaining varieties available across a smattering of suppliers, many only in small quantities, and our Sister Farm managed to get a hold of 7.

🎂Recipe: Isabel Gordon Curtis's Rose Geranium Cake

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup water
• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder (Calumet)
• Whites of 4 eggs
• Enough 'Rose of Attar' Scented Geranium leaves to line a loaf pan

Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together. Cream butter and sugar. Add alternately water and flour mixture, then whites of eggs. Whip hard 5 minutes. Line loaf pan with buttered paper and rose geranium leaves. Carefully add cake batter. Bake at 350°F until it tests done. The geranium leaves can be pulled off with the paper. Note: To intensify the rose flavor, add a few drops of rose extract to the cake batter. You can also use scented geranium leaves when making a standard pound cake recipe.

📖Further Reading: There are many MANY more great recipes on how to use these fascinating plants at the giant Herb Society of America's Pelargonium Guide.