I bought a beautiful hanging basket of geraniums for my front porch last summer. Moved it to a shady spot under some oak trees as I planned to be away from home for a few days and would not be able to water it during our dry central Texas heat. When I returned from my trip (to my great dismay) found that the deer had nibbled my lovely geraniums...flowers and all... down to three inch stalks. I trimmed the stalks and moved the plant out to my enclosed patio to try to nurse it back to health. To my great surprise, it's now in full bloom again. However, the leaves are no longer a luscious green and full. They are so tiny they're almost invisible. What happened? How can I encourage the leaves to return to their original healthy state and still keep the flowers blooming?

Yes, Tresa, I can send you cuttings of my scented-geraniums. On one condition, though--I think you will have to teach me how to package them! Thanks for offering to pay the postage. :-) I only have rose-scented and lemon -scented right now. I am planning to get others in the future but not yet. Anyway, thanks everyone for the info. (I had meant F not C for the temperature--I forget that most of the world is progressive and uses Celcius now! LOL)

Hi Toni, Go for one that's Fragrant ! not smelly. :) Well, that 'hospital', is a less sunny rest, in a humid spot they'd like. It's a couple of cement blocks over the soil in pleasant, needle tree shade. You're right. It is probably time to fertilize. :] Thanks for the support, I've been dithering and fretting. I decided to wait to take cuttings, till there was a little top growth. They're sprouting now. Scents to look for -rose [several] -citrus [ lime, lemon crispum, Robert's lemon rose...] -pine [pine, Dean's Delite is one]. The rose or pine, will have cut leaves. The chocolate is big and gangly, and fuzzy. :> It would probably work, -only the strawberry one, didn't. The scent isn't that chocolaty [chocopine?]. Might plant one in the ground for the summer. [Thanks other thread!] Quite a few plants are supposed to smell like chocolate. Well-Sweep-Herb-Farm is in NJ. They have a list by botanical names. They even carry P. 'mabel grey' [finicky], heavenly scent! and effective. On the supplier thing, most of the great greenhouses, are Mom and Pop places, facing rising costs, like heat, labor, and pressures to modernize, which unfortunately have to be passed on. Some are lucky enough to have had more than one generation. When there is a transition, figuring how to change to new ways can be painful. you've probably seen this yourself, a few times. I was lucky enough to have bought from, and received advice from, some of that older generation, new one too, they're really nice. So Logee's is special to me. They started over a hundred years ago. Besides being local [~2 hrs] The greenhouse is a wonderful place to visit, I'll post a thread link below. I feel I owe them a debt of gratitude for existing because it educated me on tropicals, especially fragrant ones. I was right there in florida, surrounded by the predictable, and didn't know how to find out about any interesting plants. The library had...There It Was: 'The Essence of Paradise'.........since then it's been No More Boring Plants! They do have a whole sunken solar green house with geraniums [pelargoniums] some with cool flowers. Yeah, the pots are small, and i can't get many, but you see why I want to buy there. However, with this dreadful addiction, :) i am always interested in other places too. Their's are usually a superior cultivar, especially with scenteds. They bred them, after all. Pelly page: http://www.logees.com/products.asp?dept=75 You can cut and paste this to the address row up top. Mealies Grrr ! Saw your purple passion problem. Stick a pot of 'true rose' scented geranium [ pelargoneum graveolens] next to it. And/or a lemon crispum, or lime, you'll love me forever, lol! A few pots of different cool scents, can surround the problem. Give miss mealy fuzz, just a puff, of 10 %white vinegar and water spray [an inch or two in the bottom of the bottle]. Throw a leaf in the pot. HA ! Take that ! you mealies! Don't forget the wall, window frame, and curtains- you can use straight alcohol spray. Or your own formula, made much stronger than plants like. Hate those insecticides too. I couldn't find superthrive around here. Finally went with the Dyna-gro. The plants jumped up! Those micronutrients really make a difference. Except for Mabel, scenteds aren't fussy. Use hardly any fertilizer, thin it out, 4-6x a season [skip winter]. They are from clivia country, but sunnier. Here is a link that might be useful: Pictures from Logee's [a visit] by GWEBers

Well I got an answer from Robin Parer of the nursery Geraniaceae in Marin Co CA. Robin is maybe the most distinguished geraniophile in the US and her nursery has the goal of selling most if not all of the hardy geraniums available, as well as quite a few erodiums and scented pelargoniums. She is extremely knowledgeable and has great plants which may well be impossible to find elsewhere in the US (especially now that Heronsood is no longer). Robin says that this hybrid selection is a cross of G. incanum and robustum, both from S Africa, with robutum from a much colder area. She said she doubts that this plant will be hardy in anything colder than z 8 (which obviously leaves me, well, "out in the cold"). I called the nursery where I bought the 2 plants and talked to the perennials manager. She seemed very non-plused and didn't seem to care much. But they do guarantee all their plants for a year, including overwintering. So I think I will probably keep them, maybe even propagate some, and I can always get my money back next year when they will probably croak over the winter outside. Interesting to me that the nursery didn't seem to care that the plant was mislabelled as to parentage and obviously is not a very cold hardy geranium. And it's normally a pretty good nursery too. Robin says that this propagates easily from stem cuttings too like most S. African geraniums. And yes, of course, I have grown Spinners and Brookside and lots of forms of G. sanguineum as well as dozens of other geraniums for years. Here, the deer and rabbits mostly leave geraniums alone (except G. phaeum forms). David