There will be multiple days featuring Pelargonium species and cultivars through the year, but the Day 14 plant is a showstopper, Pelargonium papilionaceum. This shrub-sized plant offers a lot and takes very little. It reaches six feet tall in pots, blooms prolifically in early spring with interesting, bright flowers. My favorite asset is the fragrant leaves, spicy and bright–they perk up my mood in the greenhouse and on the patio.
Here is one of the plants in the greenhouse today:
The leaves look pretty good still, but if it gets cold enough, more of them will drop. They provide a buffet for webby little green caterpillars of an unknown species that I see all year long on this plant. Below are a bunch of photos from the years of these amazing plants.
I’ve had these beauties start from seed blown around inside the greenhouse. They also generously start from cuttings. I hope to have them forever.
The 2020 plans for them are to repot the larger plants into fresh, fertile soil and take more cuttings to have new plants coming along.