Overheard a rant on the bus.What ‘bastard’ things will you not have in your garden.

[florentina1]

A man behind me yesterday was ranting to his friend about “bastard lupins”Apparently his wife loves them, he hate them, and they are coming up everywhere. He was really funny, almost worthy of his own stand up routine.

For me it is fuchsia. Gladioli, hanging baskets and anything with slogans.

Geraniums are beautiful! The scent on their leaves 💫 just glorious. They remind me of my grandmother who was a big fan and her house always smelt of Geraniums

They have a wonderful scent on their leaves. You can buy Geranium essential oil it's beautiful. Shall I sign you up for a few boxes?! 😉

Love the smell of geraniums and germanium oil.

Bastard sticky stuff that sticks to everything and has got everywhere where I wasn't looking

Also bastard fox that this morning pooped in the bowl of peanuts that is usually shared nicely between squirrels, jays and fox.

Geranium robertianum, aka Stinking Bob, Herb Robert, smells.

The related genus Pelargonium, which gardeners used to call geraniums, smell, and some are grown for the fragrance of their leaves

The geraniums whose fragrance and oil you are all enthusing about aren’t geraniums, they’re Pelargoniums

Herb Robert, along with goosegrass and bindweed are the bêtes noires of my garden.

I'm not too keen on the scented ones, but I like the smell of standard pelargoniums. They smell earthy to me, like the soil after rain. However, everyone else in my birth family insists that they (the pelargoniums, not the family) smell of cat pee, and I am Just Wrong.

I am hoping that this difference is genetic and will one day prove that we are not actually related!

@BigglyBee What does flowering currant smell of to you?

I couldn't honestly tell you. I know I've seen some years ago, but they don't grow well here. The only currant type thing I grow is blackcurrant and they smell of um, blackcurrants, exactly as you'd expect. I took delivery of some whitecurrants recently but I haven't checked the leaves for smells yet.

Just wondered, because most people think flowering currant smells of tomcat.

The leaves smell of cat pee. We have blackcurrant plants - a few years old now, but when they fruit the leaves definitely smell of tom cat !!