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Hi, my name's Byron Martin here at Logee's and today we're going to be talking
about Scented Geraniums.
Scented Geraniums are in the genus Pelargonium
and although they are not a true Geranium, they are closely related to it.
Scented Geraniums
are native to Africa and there are many species and cultivars of them
which have a great deal a variation in terms of the scent of the foliage
and the color of the flower bloom.
Regular geraniums or Pelargoniums, the zonals or the hanging basket
varieties they have a similar
cultural needs with the exception of inducing flowers.
So when we grow them we want to make sure that they are,
as I mentioned they're given full light exposure there grown
in bright sunshine southern exposure is great
if you growing them in the house right up against the glass they can be grown
in an east-west window successfully
except that you will see elongation of the stems
and the leaf petioles that's the stem of the leaf,
and that's due to the lower light levels. But they can be grown there for their
aromatic scent
although flowering will be somewhat restricted under those conditions.
One of the critical parts to bringing
Scented Geraniums into flower is subjecting them to cool night
temperatures
if we grew this at night temperatures consistently
above 60 degrees this would never form buds and these flowers would never
appear on these plants
so the trick is we need to subject them
to periods below 60 and above freezing because they really are sensitive to frost
for the duration of the winter.
When that's done on a consistent basis these young buds will start to form and appear
and they generally, if you grow them under high good quality light
and under those cool temperatures you'll see the bud starting to form in March
you may have some flowers that early by time we get to this time of year which
is April
are Scented Geraniums are in full bloom. This process of flowering will go on
for months actually until we hit warm weather.
Next in culturing Scented Geraniums we need to look at
root health
and need for water so it's important that we
bring the soil to a period of dryness and even to the point where we put some
stress
on the plant in terms of even wilting a little bit
so you see the plant kinda tipping a little bit and it takes a lot to do that
to a Geranium but that's not a bad thing that's actually a good thing.
If we're growing in area where maybe they're outside in summertime and there is
a lot of rain or we happen to be a little heavy on the watering
clay pots a good for growing in them this drys the plant out quicker.
You can see this, this is Lady Plymouth which is one of the variegated forms
with the pink flowers but you can see that this plant is actually
somewhat under potted and that's not a bad thing and it creates a very woody
stem
as this plant is grown what I would term hard, and hard meaning
that there is a restricton of water, which
causes the plant to
pull back a little bit on its growth. In growing them there's
the need for fertilization because we are growing them in containers
typically they're not heavy feeders and
it's best to grow them a little bit on the lean side
if you under fertilize them you'll see that the leaves
particularly on varities that have a
pure green leaf to them and you'll see the leaves yellowing a little bit the
the older leaves may yellow
and fall off, especially under dryness that means that they're
little bit too little lean on the fertilizer you can increase your
fertilization a little bit just to make the plant green and full
overfeeding and over watering will make a very lush
gangly, overpowering plant and it really doesn't do the gardener or the
plant any good to put it under that kind of growing conditions.
So we generally recommend fertilizing probably once every two weeks with the
liquid feed
going into your water if you gonna top dress with the fertilizer just go light
on it.
Within the group of Pelargoniums there are different forms or habits
that the plants take on and plants like these are what we call
Upright and they make great potted plants for window sills
or can be used outside on the patio sometimes
people even put them into mixed containers in summertime
It's not so much for the flowers but you can always go by and rub the foliage
for fragrance.
We also have other varieties, this is a variety
called 'Apple' which flowers over a much longer period of time
then most scented geraniums but this is a trailing type or scandant
and it works very well as a hanging basket.
I hope this helps you and gives you
some ideas on growing these wonderful plants
and their great for the nose and wonderful for the eye.
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