Pelargoniophilia

[muckefuck]

When I was a child (oh, here we go again!), my father grew scented geraniums. The were larger and more slow-growing than ordinary geraniums, but with smaller flowers and woody stems. He kept them in large terracotta pots. In summer, they lived on the back patio and, in winter, he brought them inside and placed them in the sunniest window alongside the Schefflera (or "Shiffalera", as we called it). I think we had four varieties: apple-scented, rose-scented, lemon- or orange-scented, and I don't recall what else. We never did anything special with them except occasionally crush the leaves and sniff them.

I don't recall where the bought them and never thought they'd be a difficult plant to find again until I started looked for them a few years ago. Even Gethsemane didn't carry them--or at least, so I thought. Then when I was there last Saturday picking out herbs, I saw familiar crinkly leaves behind the dillweed. Whoo-hoo! The labels were identical despite obvious differences between the plants, so I just went around crushing leaves until I found one with the most appealing mixture of perfume and spice.

Now that we have one (potted and staked up so nicely by the Old Man), I've been looking for uses. According to some sites, the leaves can be eaten in salad. I don't think they're suitable for tisanes. Perhaps I should get into making potpourri? With e. to sew sachets for me, we could become an unstoppable team!