Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm
“Won’t you come into the garden? I would like my Geranium to see you.”
A few months ago, a friend gave me a Geranium cutting, just a little piece of stalk with one leaf, which I planted in an egg shell filled with potting soil and kept on the kitchen counter (Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa). As soon as there were enough roots, I planted her into this Terracotta pot, egg shell and all. Within 2 weeks I had about 8 leaves and another stalk appearing next to the original cutting. She now lives on the patio near my Natal Fig bonsai, and I’m sure I’ve heard them whispering to one another a couple of times! And now every spring she blesses me with a great show of her gorgeous flowers.
It is well known that the whole Geranium genus is highly redolent of volatile oils – lemon-scented, musk-scented, and peppermint-scented. In South Africa folk-lore has it that, if you plant Geraniums in your garden, you will never have any snakes!
