Friday 11 November 2011

Placerville Surprise - a new scented leaf pelargonium

Scented Pelargonium "Placerville Surprise"

With not many flowers open in the greenhouses now, the scented leaf varieties really come into their own.  Non more so than Placerville Surprise.   It has a really strong lemon scent, with fairly large bright pink flowers with dark blotch and well marked feathering on the top two petals.   It is a strongly growing plant as well.

As many of you will know, I have two greenhouses.  One in the back garden and one in my vegetable garden at the side of the house.  Both greenhouses have pelargoniums in them - I don't use the greenhouses for anything else.  Last month I put up the bubble wrap to keep frost out.  This means the automatic shutters don't open, but I always make a point of opening each of the glasshouse doors every day.  Even on the coldest of days the doors will be opened for maybe just half an hour to move the air around.  However, we are now into November, with dreary dull and damp days.   It should not have been a surprise to me to find that one of the greenhouses had botrytis.   Not much, but enough that I spent a morning removing dead grey mouldy flowers and a few leaves.  I should know better, as I did remove all flowers and buds from the plants in the second greenhouse and there is no botrytis in there. But this greenhouses is the one I see from the house and I like to see a few flowers in there when the door is opened.   Will I remember next year?  Probably not.


Botrytis on Pelargonium "Angelique"
 Pelargonium "Bold Cherub" badly affected with Botrytis



IN REMEMBRANCE

Thursday 3 November 2011

Auntie Billie - Angel Pelargonium

Angel Pelargonium - Auntie Billie

"Auntie Billie" is another angel pelargonium that I find grows well in a hanging pot, having a fairly lax growing habit.   The petals are a pale pink with dark red veining, almost like a blotch, on the upper two petals and the lower three having a white throat.   The leaves are small and a very bright green.

Hybridised by Malcolm Harris, "Auntie Billie", was introduced in 2003. 

 I have been taking cuttings in the past couple of weeks.  Due to family ill health, I was not able to take many in last August and September, which is when I normally take them.  I have taken mainly zonals, ivy leaf and scented pelargoniums.   Luckily the weather in October here in the UK has been very mild and fairly bright, and I think I will be lucky this year.   So far they are all looking quite healthy.   I have some in the conservatory and some in one of the greenhouses in propagators.   Once I have some well rooted and potted on I will take cuttings from the Angel pelargoniums.