Pelargonium Citrosum cascade bonsai

Pelargonium x citrosum aka Scented Pelargonium Prince of Orange aka Scented Geranium Prince of Orange is an upright grower plant with citrus scented foliage.  Due to the compact columnar habit, usually they are trained in formal upright standard style. But if you wish ... and the perseverance is one of your skills, you can train them also in other bonsai like styles.

This bonsai, like many others, so dear to my heart, is "Edible, fragrant, very useful, showy, flowering, drought resistant, little care and very forgiving ..."

 Pelargonium Citrosum (Prince of Orange) bonsai - cascade style

We decided to make another cascade bonsai from one of our plants, and after few months of trainings, the result was really interesting. The woody stem tends to become leggy unless it is pinch back - so initial we left some branches to grow longer for few months. (the plant did not look so great in that period) .

Scented Pelargonium Citrosum  (Prince of Orange) pre-bonsai

Last year, when summer began, we re-potted it and we bended the stem and side branches  (before become too woody) over one big calcite rock. Then we pinched them back at every 2-3 weeks - to obtain a lush foliage with small roundish leaves. Still under training, to create and develop the main trunk and crown, upright growing apex, because only the branches are supposed to cascade ... not the entire tree.

 Scented Pelargonium Citrosum (Prince of Orange) bonsai in training

Usually the leaves are roundish with a crinkled edge and let a delightful scent in cooking: in sauces, desserts, lemon chicken or salmon.




"Prince of Orange"  flowers are larger than other scented pelargonium varieties, pink with small dark stippling on the upper two petals and are very appreciated by the bees (who collect nectar and pollen all blooming season).

Pelargonium x citrosum Prince of Orange flowers

Pelargonium x citrosum Prince of Orange branch

When the blooming season was gone (at the beginning of September) I obtained many curly-tailed seeds as a result of pollination process. 




I consider this cascade bonsai my best Pelargonium x citrosum bonsai, although we trained several others Pelargonium citrosum over the years ... but most of them were falling in love with other humans and decided to move along :-)