The foliage of scented geraniums is used in potpourri, to freshen drawers and closets, and to enhance mild fruit jellies. Rose geranium, for example, is often added to apple jelly to infuse the condiment with a rose flavor. Although grown primarily for their fragrant leaves, plants boast sweetly modest flowers, petite and starlike, a quite different effect from the conventional geraniums of red or white, pink or salmon. Scented geranium flowers are more evocative of wild woodland flowers, delicate, of muted pastels, some with dark lines pointing pollinating insects to the heart of the flower. The blooms are as unscented as the foliage is fragrant.
Geraniums take well to being grown in containers.
A somewhat pot-bound plant will bloom more readily than one that has plenty of room to grow. Plants kept indoors during the winter take well to being put outdoors again after danger of frost is past. Geraniums will do the bulk of their growing in the spring and summer, a time when they can be divided to produce new pots of plants. They also can be propagated from cuttings, rooting readily in jars of water and then planted in moist potting soil. Pruning plants to keep them compact and full is one way of harvesting foliage for potpourris and other uses.