Pelargonium species

[Gail]

Link to Fibrex website - http://www.fibrex.co.uk/index.asp

P. barklyi
P. glutinosum
P. fulgidum, coral pink form (they also have the red and a pretty salmon pink)
P. australe (Redonde form)
P. australe Inland form, fruiting.  Many of the pelargoniums are as attractive as pulsatillas when seeding.
Eskay Gold
Eskay Verglo
Sarah Don
Roller's Satinique
Violet Unique

[Gail]

A rather different collection is just a five minute drive away at The Domestic Fowl Trust in Honeyborne.
The bird I most wanted to bring home was an amazing Pied Turkey stag, I think he would look gorgeous strutting around our orchard.  Prize for the ugliest bird went to a Transylvanian Naked Neck.

[Ragged Robin]

Fibrex nurseries looks wonderful Gail - what terrific Pelargoniums filling those glasshouses as far as the eye can see.  You've picked out some beauties and I love the leaf of P. barkyli and Eskay Gold is very unusual - were any of the leaves scented? I think I will have to find a reason to go there 

[Gail]

Hi Robin, Yes lots of scented leaved ones, species and hybrids.  I bought a 'Chocolate Peppermint' and 'Brilliantine' (?eau de cologne scent). The ones I really like are those with night-scented flowers - P. triste, P. gibbosum etc are strongly fragrant but only between about 5pm and 8am; ideal really for those who are out at work all day.

[Ragged Robin]

Thanks Gail - i can smell them from here 

[Gail]

I've had my P. gibbosum inside for a while as I've been trying to cross pollinate it with some of my others such as the 'sweetheart pelargonium' Pelargonium echinatum (common name from the heart shaped markings that some forms have on the petals) to see if I can get some hybrids with the sweet scent of gibbosum.  There are a number of old reports of gibbosum hybrids but I've not had any success yet but at least I can enjoy my plant's nightly output of fragrance without stumbling around in the dark outside.

[mark smyth]

thanks for the photos. I must sow seeds next spring. My green house lay empty all summer this year.

P. australe is hardy in the UK but as you see it's a prolific seeder. If only all produced so much seed

[angie]

Gail that's a lovely pelargonium, the markings are so sweet.

Angie

[fermi de Sousa]

This is a hybrid called "Mallee Magic" which I presume was raised using Australian native species!




Pelargonium triste in the garden,


cheers
fermi

[Paul T]

Fermi,

Your triste is different to the flowers on mine.  Yours look much whiter.  Strong perfume at certain times as well.... seems to depend on time of day and age of the flowers.

[mark smyth]

from memory P. triste is night scented. Below is how my two looked before being killed by the winter of 2010

[Gail]

Sorry to hear your tristes are no more Mark - I like the dark one.  Mine is a sort of yellow colour.  I'd read that P. triste was so-named because of the 'sad-looking' colour of the flowers but reading The Geraniaceae Group's Pelargonium Section Polyactium by Richard Clifton, he points out that the original description by Linnaeus says "noctu olens, triste" which means the night odour is evil (foul).  I didn't think mine smelt unpleasant and would in fact have said it had a nice fragrance but memory is unreliable. It is just budding up at the moment so I will be able to check soon.

[Paul T]

The perfume of my plant of triste is almost candy-like, definitely not unpleasant.

[fermi de Sousa]

from memory P. triste is night scented. Below is how my two looked before being killed by the winter of 2010

Hi Mark,
I have two varieties, the first was grown from seed from Silverhills


And the second came from a nursery at Lara, which had a stall at the Mt Macedon Plant Fair a few years ago,


I could try to save seed for you (if any is set!)
cheers
fermi

[mark smyth]

yes please. Any seeds from your collection would be great