Gardening 101: Ivy Leaf Pelargoniums

Ivy leaf pelargonium, Pelargonium peltatum

Let’s first clear the air concerning the ongoing identify debate concerning pelargoniums versus geraniums. When you look on-line, most articles point out the ivy leaf sort as a geranium and never a pelargonium. Nevertheless, I chatted with knowledgeable and proprietor of Geraniaceae Nursery Robin Parer, who has been promoting crops within the geranium household for the previous 40 years, and based on her, the controversy was settled all the way in which again in 1792. “Botanists proposed a change in identify for pelargoniums popping out of South Africa to Europe within the seventeenth and 18th centuries, based mostly on distinguishing floral traits that differentiated them from the geraniums rising as wild flowers throughout Europe. Geraniums and pelargoniums had been seen to have floral traits in widespread however had been completely different sufficient to be separated into completely different genera,” she tells me. Robin goes on to share that the gardening public, nonetheless, didn’t go together with this nomenclature, and, alas, “right here we’re 231 years later, nonetheless calling pelargoniums by the ‘incorrect’ identify.”

For me, no matter this household feud, I like the ivy leaf varieties for his or her traditional look, free behavior, and charming flowers. Please maintain studying to be taught extra about ivy leaf pelargoniums.

Images by Donn Reiners, courtesy of Geraniaceae Nursery.

A handful of flowers colour my childhood reminiscences: gardenias (intoxicating scent), fuschias (dangling buds that I take advantage of to pop) and, in fact, each geraniums and pelargoniums (traditional petal energy). I discovered concerning the ivy sort once I began designing gardens and particularly once I started creating container gardens. I really recognize them for his or her number of colours, which might mix into any colour scheme, their capability to weave and politely mingle by different crops, and their knack for spilling over and softening pot edges.

Coming in a dizzying array of colours and sporting five-lobed leaves harking back to ivy (therefore the widespread identify), these sweethearts have looser inflorescence and a extra relaxed behavior than zonal varieties. Ivy leaf pelargoniums begin exhibiting up in nurseries within the spring, and that is the perfect time to grab them up and get them into your backyard.  Their quick development is a plus—purchase these crops in 4-inch sizes and so they shortly fill an area and begin blooming straight away.

You will discover conventional ivies which have thick fleshy leaves, however they have a tendency to flower lower than the trailing varieties that may have variegated or straight inexperienced leaves and single-type flowers. Because of collectors, growers, and nurseries, quite a lot of shapes, sizes, and types exist. Robin doesn’t develop the newest varieties that you’ll find in backyard facilities or nurseries, focusing as a substitute on heirloom varieties. “I’m eager on maintaining the heirloom crops in cultivation for his or her big selection of colours, their historical past, and their basic curiosity. A few of these crops return to the nineteenth century.”

Robin grows 124 ivy-leaf varieties and some of her favorites are:

Pelargonium ‘L’Elegante’ from 1868 with variegated leaves in white inexperienced and pink and white flowers.

‘El Gaucho’ from 1945 with gentle purple double flowers.

‘Balcon Royale’ with crimson/orange flowers, ‘King of the Balcons’ with pink flowers, and ‘Mini Lilac Cascade’.  Apparently The Balcons are the pelargoniums you see in window bins all through Europe, most frequently as single flowers with 5 petals in crimson, white and pink.

‘Sugar Child’ and ‘Nutmeg Lavender’ are each small and compact.

Cheat Sheet

• Pretty when added to hanging baskets, window bins, and containers, the place their lengthy, cascading behavior can showcase. Much less generally, they’re planted on the sting of retaining partitions.
• The stems and flowers may be delicate so keep away from planting these close to busy walkways the place they are often ran into and disturbed.
• Hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies love to go to the long-blooming flower clusters.
• Mildly poisonous to babies, cats, and canines.
• Excellent plant companions are Campanula, Myers fern, Lomandra and Fuschias.