Take Your Medicine
No, Really, I Insist!
I never really got Pelargoniums until I got Pelargoniums. Oh sure, I’d admired pictures of Sean Anthony Pritchard’s and Jack Laver Brister’s, but I didn’t get-get them. Now I can’t imagine being without them.
Pelargoniums lived in my mind within two categories of things I hate: (1) House plants and (2) Neglected window boxes
I know, hating house plants is a very unpopular opinion. And it is not because I don’t think they can look beautiful. It is more so because as a millennial with an obsession with interior design, house plants rank along with ‘Live Laugh Love’ posters as the absolute, most basic millennial decor trends. Rental flats with bright-white walls and a sad-looking (or worse, FAKE) Monstera in the corner? Basic.
I digress.
As I am starting to assess what I can take with me back to London and what will need to be stored, sold, gifted or chucked, my Pelargoniums are at the top of the ‘keep’ list and I have already started to worry about where there is space for them to live that will get good light so that they continue to thrive.
I’m not sure why I bought them, given my indifference. I guess I was following the crowd. Everyone in horticulture seems to adore them. Sarah Raven’s passion for ‘Attar of Roses’, in particular, influenced me to buy three plugs of that highly scented ‘Pele’ (as proper fans call them, causing me to constantly misspell the word (spelling ‘misspell’? Also difficult)) and then I chucked in 3x ‘Martin Pope’ plugs out of I guess sheer curiosity.
I ordered them in January 2025, and received them in about March. I have no memory of potting them up. But through the course of our first year together I have fallen madly in love with them.
MADLY.
They have found a perfect spot on the deep window sill in the Barn’s kitchen. Over the summer they started to push their leaves against the windows like noses pressed against the glass, reminding me of all the times I have walked through the Pelargonium houses at Chelsea Physic Garden without really appreciating them.
They flowered, though not overwhelmingly. They’re only babies. I’d show you but along with my hopes and dreams of producing a book about my gardening journey, the photographs were lost in the Great Hard Drive Disaster.
And they have needed potting on into bigger pots for months. It is the job I have written on every single ‘to do’ list for the last several months, a perennial to do, and have still not done. At times the guilt is overwhelming.
But also sometimes I move one of the pots onto my desk to enjoy while I e.g. write, or shop for other plants, and it infuses scent and joy into the moment, like a teabag into hot water.
I now understand very well why Sarah Raven ranks ‘Attar of Roses’ among her most favourite plants of all time (but can I find the podcast episode where she confirms this to evidence my assertion? Like heck.) The scent, the ranging habit, the romance.
Stick some AoR leaves in a jar with some sugar and leave it for a while and you have ‘geranium sugar’ - the most staggering, practically free hostess gift for a foodie - as well as then having just about the most elevated strawberries, sugar, and cream on God’s green earth. You can also make cordial if you have that kind of energy. I do not.
But best of all, my AoR (and ‘Martin Pope’, too) have been my constant companion in the kitchen, through the cold, dark days, green and robust and delightful, growing away, giving joy and hope every day.
They should do a scientific study of those with a Pelargonium in their kitchen and those without. I bet the ‘having Pelargoniums’ would win the study.
And they are medicinal, after all they’re in the Physic Garden. One modern study found they are “a rich source of bioactive substances that can be further investigated and authenticated for their medicinal potential”1. Another found that “clinical evaluations in randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials have demonstrated the beneficial effect … in the treatment of respiratory tract infections with few side effects”2.
Despite having not yet identified a space in London for my existing collection, I have ordered six more plugs. For purely medicinal purposes, you understand. I have chosen three with interesting foliage (‘L’elegante’, ‘Cy’s Sunburst’, ‘Lady Plymouth’) and three for their flowers’ colour (‘Bold Beacon’, ‘Springfield Black’, ‘Nellie Florrie’).
Speaking of medicine, I absolutely INSIST that every single one of you - YES, ALL OF YOU, NO DON’T LOOK OVER YOUR SHOULDER, I MEAN YOU - read Joseph Jebelli’s essential book ‘The Brain at Rest’.
I have just listened to the audiobook (if you have ADHD, or suspect you might have ADHD, of you’re one of the many people who finds it hard to find time/energy to sit down and read a paper book: audiobooks are the answer to all of your problems) in the car and have been practically screaming “YES!! YES!!! THIS!!” into the car radio every few minutes.
Look, he doesn’t specifically mention Pelargoniums, nor is it a book specifically about gardening, but it should be read by absolutely everyone. Even if you (as I did) read the blurb and think ‘oh, I already know all of that, I don’t need some neuroscientist to tell me what I already know’ or (as I did) ‘eurgh, not another book on burn out, whatever, we all know the answer is to go outside and to overthrow capitalism’, stop being such a dick know-it-all and read it.
In particular, I am going to force my older brother (WHO JUST MADE PARTNER THIS WEEK I AM SO, SO FUCKING PROUD) to read it. I’ll pin his eyes open, Clockwork Orange-style, if I have to. The man needs to learn how to rest more than anyone else I know.
Read it. Please. I beg of you. No, actually I insist. Look, just do it! OK! After all I’ve done for you, can’t you do this ONE THING for me? PLEASE?
Pls.
OK?
Don’t be put off by the author’s science credentials, it is very clear and accessibly written while also being properly scientific. I will now always recommend it, along with Sue Stuart-Smith’s ‘The Well-Gardened Mind’, as absolutely essential reading on healing a brain and nervous system that has lost all sense of itself in pursuit of capitalist perfection. You know, a brain that is losing the battle between sanity and Mark Zuckerberg and his cabal of vampiric coders’ thirst for total, global, neurological dominance and control.
The subhead ‘How Doing Nothing Can Change Your Life’ is one of those pithy, marketeer’s favourites, but as someone who has spent three years discovering that doing nothing can actually change my life immeasurably for the better, I can’t totally hate on it.
Anyway, back to Pelargoniums: the place to buy them is Fibrex Nursery (non-spon, just a fan) and this weekend is you last chance to get delivery in March.
So, those two things: buy a Pelargonium, and read ‘The Brain at Rest’. OK? Are we all agreed? Good. Go on with your day.
First off - leave my monstera out of this!
Also, you need to write that book - nailed on it’ll find a publisher. And ta for the book reccos, relevant to my interests as you know.
I will buy it! Xx