THE 
FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
September 1 , 1840. 
PELARGONIUMS: 
THEIR CULTURE, BY MR. GAINES, OF BATTERSEA. 
From the first introduction of the foreign species, Geraniums 
have always been, and they will continue to be, favourite flowers 
with cultivators and lovers of plants of every denomination. Their 
culture is so easy, and they will grow and flower with so little 
attention, and in situations so confined, that the more common 
and hardy sorts, which are, notwithstanding, possessed of no incon¬ 
siderable beauty, are, in an especial manner, poor men’s flowers ; 
for wherever there is room to stand a flower-pot, with free ex¬ 
posure to air and light, and shelter when the weather is severe, 
there may be a healthy geranium obtained at scarcely any cost, 
and preserved by a very moderate degree of attention. On the 
other hand, the attention of a skilful breeder can always keep up 
geraniums to the first class of conservatory or drawing-room 
flowers ; and he may have them new every season, and in an 
almost unlimited variety. 
This, in great part, arises from the physiology of the plant, and 
that, again, in no small degree depends upon the character of the 
country of which it is a native. Now almost all the choicer species 
and varieties of Geraniums are natives of Southern Africa, where 
both the drought and the rain, and the violence of change from 
the one to the other, are in extremes. Where there is this in¬ 
tensity of action in the elements, there is always something 
VOL. I. NO. VI. 
R 
