Sunday 26 August 2012

Nurture…

A while back, I bought a collection of scented pelegoniums. Celia had tweeted about them and I couldn't resist. I was giddy on the success of the cuttings I had taken last year on my cutting garden course.




From three tiny bits of well established plants, I now have three fabulously healthy plants. One is in my conservatory and has loved the year-round warmth. It flowered in about March and I'm loving the scent that gets released whenever you brush past it. The ones in the garden have only been flowering the last couple of months.




The flowers are just delightful. The leaves smell of Turkish Delight. Seriously!




I digress. My plug plants duly arrived and I potted them on as instructed, tucking them in a sheltered spot so they could begin their journey into lovely healthy plants. Then I went away on holiday and that was the week when Britain got its summer and the mercury whizzed towards the 30° marker on the thermometer. Unfortunately, my sheltered spot went unnoticed by my Mum who was doing my watering and on my return my poor tiny plants looked as though they had reached the point of no return. I could have cried. First aid measures had to be acted upon so I decided to bring them all in to the conservatory and see if the constant warmth could do it's magic. I lost 3 out of the original 12.




Fast forward on four weeks and my careful nurturing and words of encouragement seem to be working. I have some delicate flowers on a couple…








…and lots of tiny new leaves on all but one of my charges.




You can read about Celia's success here and her quirky display, which I think looks fabulous and would love to have outside my back door.

6 comments:

  1. I once had nothing but a collection of pelargoniums on my front porch steps, and it was heavenly. So excited that I could start some from wee cuttings instead of paying big money for nursery-grown plants. Thank you!

    (Here we call them scented geraniums for some reason)

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  2. I always say that you must talk to plants nicely and handle them gently - treating them as if they were your babies! But I think it works.

    Pomona x

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  3. Oh, my dad used to grow these in pots when I was a kid. He had them on display in the shop we lived in as we had no garden, just a backyard. They were gloriously scented.

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  4. Hello! Turkish Delight, Apricolt, Apple, Rose scented? It doesn't get much better than that in my books. I think your picture of the row of potted pelegoniums is simply splendid.

    Stephanie

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  5. I really want some turkish delight scented pelegoniums although in truth they all sound wonderful! I'm glad that you've managed to nurse at least some of them back to health!

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  6. Oh the scents sound heavenly. And very impressed with your plant first aid skills! K x

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