They killed my pellies!

This post should be called "In sweet memory of...". Last week I ditched the last pelargonium pot I had. No, it didn't bloom this pretty. It didn't bloom at all cause it was dead. Those photos are from a previous season when I could enjoy the flowers for a bit.

Lets start from the beginning.
I was never a fan of pellies. Maybe because we always had just one type - red. They are messy when they start to drop the petals (and they bloom like crazy so there is a lot of them) and leaves.





But they also handle sun and heat well, they bloom for a long time and are very easy to propagate though cuttings. And in case you never noticed, the leaves have this lovely aroma when you touch them. I think there are also varieties with different fragrances.

So I got one as it had very pretty flowers and was cheap as a borsch (Polish saying). It was this one 👇:





It grew lovely to a very big bush and I thought they are not so bad after all. Still messy, but quite low maintenance.

Then I got some cuttings from 3 different plants, they rooted fast and started to bloom in no time.
It was the dark one you see on most of the photos, the peach one 👇





... and the most common for me, the orange/red one with round leaves 👇:

So what happened?
This bugger happened:





It turns out the cute little butterflies like them too.

First I thought they come to feed on the flowers, but their behavior was a bit odd. And then I figured out that they were not feeding. That would be actually cool. They came to lay the eggs on my pelargonium plants!

I did notice small caterpillars and tried to get rid of them, but it wasn't enough. They munch the leaves and make holes in stems.





And that how I got rid of 4 plants this spring. Pity.. really pity. I had this idea to have them all in one big pot and when they bloom they would create a big bush of flowers. Not gonna happen. I know it is also partially my fault, cause I could have taken care of them better.
Then again... an almost natural selection happened and the plants that are less attractive to insects are better for me too ;)

Damn... I kind of want to get one and give a go again. Now that I think of it's resilience to heat and long blooming time. Shit...

A couple of bonus shots of the flower leftovers (after they make a hell of a mess dropping all those pretty petals)