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Four seasons of fragrance : The flowers of the Pelargonium betulinum have reddish stems and calyces and may be white, pink or mauve. -
Four seasons of fragrance : The flowers are always bilaterally symmetrical, with four or five petals. The upper two are nearly always larger and with prominently marked nectar guides. -
Four seasons of fragrance : From late August, billowing stands of P. cucullatum turn the coastal mountain slopes of the Western Cape pink and mauve. -
Four seasons of fragrance : Even in this handful of species from the Western Cape, every one has a different leaf shape and growth habit.
PHOTOS: Lien Botha | WORDS: Dave Pepler and Laurian Brown
Tough as well as bountiful, our indigenous pelargoniums are among the most popular garden and pot plants in the world. Seductive, late-night clouds of perfume are a bonus.
We stood on Saptoukop and looked east. Unexplored, unmarked by footpaths, the Kouga lay spread out below. Our plan was to hike across this wilderness, from the Langkloof to the Baviaanskloof, from Misgund to Patensie.
I had bought a light sleeping bag especially for the trip, filled with real eiderdown and covered in Egyptian cotton. Late on the first day we made camp at the foot of a honeybee krantz beside a dark pool.
In the gathering dusk I collected plant material for bedding and unrolled my new sleeping bag. Today, 35 years later, when I take my worn old bag out of the cupboard, I can smell the Kouga.
Fleeting, somewhere between citrus and peppermint, the scent of that bedding still lingers: pelargonium. Were there flowers on the plants? Yes – I remember small mauve flowers, neither blue nor violet but Victorian mauve, a pelargonium purple so intense that it burned in the mountain light.
Colour wheel
Some of the most saturated colours in the veld belong to our wild pelargoniums, which can be divided into four colour groups: purple, red, pink, and the pale yellows and whites.
Purple seems to dominate in the pelargonium palette. Go and have a look at the coastal road to Hangklip after a fire. Burning stimulates pelargoniums to exuberant growth: when the flowers appear they dominate the entire landscape – purple, mauve, heliotrope.
The colour is unchanging, motionless in the wind, in contrast to the surging, rippling sheets of Watsonia, Ixia and Wachendorfia.
Then there are the reds, which are usually matt, without the crystalline sparkle of the nerines or the gladioli. Pelargonium red makes me think of iron oxide, especially hematite, or the red of kabuki make-up, dense and impenetrable.
A feast of fragrances
The pinks and the pale yellow and white species are the Cinderellas of the group, washed out, usually in small bunches on long stems. Yet it is among these that the crown jewel of the species hides: the cinnamon-scented Pelargonium triste.
This little plant is a low-growing species with leaves exactly like those of a carrot top. In late spring the first flower stems appear, displaying their pale, star-shaped flowers in modest little crowns.
Pick a stem or two, drop them into a long-necked vase and leave them in your bedroom. Somewhere around ten o’clock in the evening, when you’ve forgotten all about them, a perfume will drift out from the darkened rooms of the house.
You begin to search for it, drawing closer and closer to the fragrance: clean, spicy, metallic with a note of fresh grass, perhaps vetiver? No, the night-scented pelargonium! The pale flowers gleam in the darkness, together with their divine scent – surely heaven for that mysterious longtongued pollinator, the hawk moth.
Pelargonium triste was the first species to be cultivated, as early as the 16th century. Ships that called in at the Cape took a few plants to the botanic gardens at Leiden and from there they reached Kew.
Later it was discovered that many species possessed powerfully scented leaves and a whole industry sprang up around them. Mint, rose geranium, peppermint and citrus fragrances continue to be distilled from these plants today.
Because they are so tough and rewarding, pelargoniums are among the most widely grown container and garden plants in the world. Stroll past the mansions on the Rhine in Bern or Basel; cruise by the old castle of Meersburg; peer through a grille into a courtyard in medieval Trujillo or the sludge-green trellis of a stoep in Vrededorp and I guarantee that you will see a pelargonium.
Choose yours with care; opt for one with leaves that will anoint you with their fragrance, brighten your view with their electric hue and perhaps, just perhaps, seduce you with a cloud of cinnamon.
Did you know?
– Pelargoniums belong to the great plant family of Geraniaceae, hence their common (and confusing) name, geranium.
– There are approximately 220 species, most of them in southern Africa, plus – a few in the Gondwanalands of Madagascar, St Helena, Australia – and Tristan de Cunha. The vast majority occur in the south-western – Cape, with the highest concentration around Worcester.
-Pelargoniums are universally loved and have crossed every divide, thanks to their cheerful beauty and their readiness to grow from cuttings.
– They have been hybridised over centuries from about 20 key species to produce a wide range of flower forms and growth habits and thousands of cultivars.
– Most popular are the zonals, upright bushy types with dazzling – mopheads of flowers. The ivy-leaved trailing beauties that cascade in – summer from window boxes worldwide come a close second.
– Other types include the quill-petalled stellars, the rosebud fl wered noisettes, – the dainty but showy angels and uniques and the opulent regals.
– Wild Pelargoniums have largely remained the preserve – of collectors, perhaps because they are less showy. They more than make up for this in the sheer fascination of their variety and delicate beauty.
-Evergreen or deciduous, shrubby perennials, groundcovers, succulents or geophytes, they are adapted to habitats that range from fynbos to the deserts of Namibia.
– Flowers range from pale yellow to tiger-striped to shocking pink and velvet near-black. Then there are the night-scented species, – of which Dave Pepler’s Pelargonium triste is the queen.
– Botanists have divided the species into 16 sections according to growth habit, but for amateur collectors and growers they can be divided into three main groups:
Herbaceous evergreens, mostly native to the Western Cape and southern Cape, are easily propagated from cuttings. Perfect in pots or the garden, they need regular but restrained watering and feeding. Prune by two thirds in late summer and pinch out new growth to create bushy plants and encourage flowering.
Succulent and woody species, native to the drier regions, are usually dormant in summer. They may also be grown from cuttings. Excellent as sculptural container plants or in gravel or succulent gardens, they must not be overwatered or they will rot. Allow the soil to dry out completely between waterings.
Geophytic species occur in both summer and winter rainfall regions. Underground storage organs sustain them through a harsh dormant season a cold, dry winter or a hot, dry summer, during which they must be kept completely dry. In the growing season they should be watered regularly but not excessively.
The daintier species are best enjoyed in pots. Tubers that multiply may be divided during repotting to create new plants.
