Scented Geranium Care

Pelargoniums (Scented Geraniums) are a tender perennial with a high concentration of essential oils in their cell structure.  If you live in a warm climate such as southern California, you can grow these fragrant plants outside in a pot or planted in the garden year round. In the right climate they can grow as high as 10 feet.  In areas where winters are cold, you must protect your scented geraniums from frost. Bring them indoors for the winter. 

Scented geraniums do best in bright light and will need ample direct winter sun when grown on a windowsill. In the garden, a few hours of direct sun will be enough. They will also do well in bright dappled light all day. Avoid overheated sunny spots because thier soil is a bit sandy and can dry out during a hot day.  These plants actually prefer daytime temperatures around 70 degrees.

Scented Geraniums will flower, but they are small, discrete and pretty, but not the reason you grow these plants.

The soil for scented geraniums should be well drained.  I make a mixture of 2 parts potting soil to one part sand to improve the drainage.  You do not need to worry about soil richness, as you do not want to grow your scented geraniums in excessively rich soil as this can cause the leaves to have less fragrance. The pH should be neutral to slightly acid, about 6.0 is fine.

I repot my geraniums in the spring.  It is part of my ritual getting ready to move the plants back outdoors.  This replacing of the soil usually replenishes the nutrients they need.  If you do not do this, you can fertilize your scented geranium using a 10-10-10 fertilizer.

Scented geraniums generally grow pest-free.  If you see aphids, white-fly or other pests, treat them with insecticidal soap.  I wash the tops and bottoms of the leaves in fall when I bring them inside to avoid any issues indoors.

Propagation

In 2023 I decided to try a couple of different techniques to get new plants from my scented geraniums.  I winter the plants indoors over winter and they become very tall and leggy due to lack of light.  This year, rather than cutting off the tops of the branches and rooting those cuttings I let the plants grow then took them outside and trimmed them back.

Several plants had long woody stems which had lost most of there leaves over the winter.  If I cut these, the plants would have no leaves left, so I decided to try another technique or two to get new growth.

For the Grey Lady Plymouth, a lemon-scented variegated germanium with a light yellow edge on the leaf, both plants had made long stems with almost no leaves around the base.  For one I repotted it with a single stem to see if new leaves would form on the stem.

layered plant stem covered with soil

Another one I look the long stem in one pot and crossed it into another pot and slit the underside and covered the stem with soil to allow it to root while still connected to a mother plant.  Later I cut it from mother plant and now I have two! (This technique is called layering when you do it in the ground.

Cuttings

I take cuttings from my plants twice a year.  In the fall when I bring them indoors for winter and in the Spring when I take them back outside for the season. I try to do this with my scented geraniums, so I bring in a smaller plant in the fall.  They grow and get very leggy in a window for the winter so a smaller plant will be less mess. In the spring those that grew well in the winter are ready for a trim, so I get many cuttings from the plants who are ready to explode once the weather gets warm.

I root the cuttings several different ways.  Sometimes I root them in sand.  Sometimes in seed starter and sometimes in water.  In the water I use the vase method and the hydroponic method.

A canning jar, a special tray and a handful of clay pebbles and I can root a number of cuttings.

Technique

To propagate a scented geranium it is best to work from a cutting so that you get the hybrid and scent you enjoyed with the original plant.  

Simply cut a stem just above the leaf nodule.  

Take off all the excess leaves.

You can start the cutting in warm damp sand or in a glass of water. 

 

Once it develops roots you can replant it.  

The soil for scented geraniums should be well drained.  I make a mixture of 2 parts potting soil to one part sand to improve the drainage.  

Nicely growing rutted cutting.

Geraniums florishing in the summer!