2012: Year of the Geranium

Posted: 18 Jan 2012 in Blog Key ingredients, biodiversity & farming blog Beauty is on the inside... what's inside your moisturiser?!

Each year, plants chosen by professionals from within the horticulture industry are showcased by the National Garden Bureau. Popularity, ease of growth, adaptability, genetic diversity and versatility are the judging criteria for the selected perennials, annuals and vegetables. This year’s choice – the geranium – is certainly versatile and is already a common sight for many but not all are aware of the fantastically wide variety of scented-leaved geraniums available.

 

A truer designation would actually be Year of the Pelargonium, but that may well be lost on most of us. Up until a couple of years ago when I first started getting into horticulture I had never heard of pelargoniums and this is probably due to a nomenclature snafu by Carl Linaeus, the father of taxonomy. In his “Species Plantarum,” published in 1753, the Swedish botanist placed all geranium and pelargonium species in the Geranium genus because of their similar seeding habits. Within just a few years, a French botanist, Charles Louis L’Héritier de Brutelle, realized the latter should be in a separate genus, but the Pelargonium genus title never caught on and so you’ll often see pelargoniums listed as geraniums. True geraniums are the cranesbills, hardy North American and European herbaceous perennials; while pelargoniums are semi-tender or tender plants, mostly from South Africa, that have graced our gardens with their large flowers for decades.

 

Pelargoniums were originally found in the wild, primarily in the western corner of South Africa. First popularized in this country through the efforts of Thomas Jefferson, horticulturists have been having a frenzied heyday of discovery and introduction of new cultivars for the past 20 years.

 

There are six main groups of pelargoniums. Regal are bushy evergreen perennials and shrubs with rounded leaves sometimes lobed or partially toothed, producing single rarely double flowers in shades of mauve, pink, purple or white grown for outdoor or indoor display. The Angel variety is similar to regals, but more compact and bushy and is mostly derived from P. crispum. Ivy-leaved are trailing evergreen perennials with stiff fleshy leaves and single or double flowers used for hanging baskets or containers. The Zonal variety is most commonly planted as bedding plants and is mainly derived from P. inquinans and P. zonale. They are upright, bushy, succulent-stemmed perennials grown for their singular or double flowers, which can range in colour from white to red and everything in between, including bicolours and speckles.

Pelargonium Zonal

But the most interesting ones for us are the beautiful Scented-leaf pelargoniums. These are shrubby evergreen perennials and shrubs, which have distinctly lobed, toothed or incised or variegated leaves. This group secretes scented compounds, or essential oils, from the leaves and used in perfumes and other cosmetics. Pelargonium Graveolens is the most common geranium essential oil used in skin care products and is selected for its wonderful restorative, toning and balancing properties, and its uplifting rose scent.  It is considered especially good for mature skin. Other scents available are described as lemon, lime, citrus, nutmeg, peppermint, apple and pineapple, among others.

Pelargonium Graveolens

The final category of pelargonium is for unique shrubby evergreen perennials that do not fall in to any of the above categories. If you’re interested in starting or extending your geranium collection, how about picking one of the scented-leaved varieties for a splash of fragrance. Plus if you’re interested to know more about how and why rose scented pelargoniums are used in skin care products stay tuned to our Beauty is on the inside… campaign. 

Check out our earlier blog on Geraniums and their fragrant uses for more info and a tea reciepe!

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