Saturday 27 October 2018

Dwarf Zonal Pelargonium "Bold Magic", and mystery pelargonium named

"Bold Magic"
 Fully double deep salmon flowers make John Gibbons' "Bold Magic" an attractive dwarf zonal pelargonium.  The leaves are dark green with a darker green zone.   This makes a good show plant.


This is my mystery zonal pelargonium.  It is a basic pelargonium with large heads of single dark rosy peach flowers with a central white eye.  I saw this growing in my nephew's garden in Adelaide, Australia, several years ago.  It was growing like a small shrub.  I took a couple of cuttings and brought them home with me.  The plant grows well and it is a vigorous grower.  Each year I grow it in a large planter in the garden.  But I have never known its name. My sister planted it, but she had lost the label and had no idea.  I have asked on one or two Australian Pelargonium Facebook Pages but no one seems to know its name so I just called it "Dales", after my nephew.  There are now several Specialist Australian Pelargonium Facebook pages and a couple of weeks ago I spotted what I was sure was my plant.  I asked my sister what she thought and she confirmed that she thought it could well be the same as my plant as she recognised the name.   So, after investigating a bit further I am now able to put a name to my mystery plant.  She is "Lady of Spain".  This is not a great photo, but I took it to send to compare with the one on Facebook on one of the few showery days we have had this year.  Introduced by Schmidt, USA in 1947.

I see on my last Blog post that I thought life would be a bit easier now, but in fact I've had an unbelievable busy year.  However, fingers crossed, life is slowing down a bit for the time being.  I have been taking cuttings and have sown a few pelargonium seeds.  I'll update you on these in my next post.