Cottage Garden Flowers and Geraniums
Among the Cottage Garden Flowers are old-time garden plants that were very popular in the old days and particulaly common around old cottages and farms in the southern parts of Sweden.
The Cottage Garden Flowers can be used as inspiration by those who want to choose plants suitable for the garden of an old house, or who simply enjoy "old-fashioned" flowers.
In the 2025 season, a collection of geraniums (Pelargonium) will also be moved here from the Ornamental Plants section.
Iris
Irises (genus Iris) have long been cherished garden plants. Almost 3500 years ago, King Thutmose III of Egypt had irises in his garden. In Sweden, they have been cultivated at least since the 17th century, both as ornamentals and as medicinal plants.
There are over 300 wild species of Iris. Two of them are native to Sweden: yellow iris (I. pseudacorus) and blue iris (I. spuria). The most commonly grown irises in our gardens are cultivars and hybrids resulting from crosses of a number of wild species.
Geraniums
There are nearly 300 wild species of geraniums (Pelargonium). Most are native to southern Africa, and from here the first geraniums came to Europe with European ships trading in the Indian Ocean region.
Southernwood geranium (Pelargonium abrotanifolium) was collected by the Linnaean disciple Carl Peter Thunberg during one of his travels in the Cape region in the 1770s, and he presented it to science. Unlike modern cultivars, southernwood geranium has rather small leaves and a multitude of flowers. Like other geraniums, it secretes essential oils from small glandular hairs on the leaves.