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Little smells greener than a geranium. And in Lady Carole Bamford’s Pelargonium Glasshouse, home to her collection of 173 species, the scent is heady. “When I was first married, I started putting geraniums in the greenhouse,” she says. “I was 29 and I thought, I’d better get gardening. So, I started collecting them. They’re easy to grow, they’re very English and they go on forever.” An obsession was seeded.
Daylesford Organic Farm in the Cotswolds is both HQ for the Bamford family and for the namesake business founded by Carole Bamford in 2002. When the lifestyle and wellness brand Bamford was launched in 2004, geranium became the signature fragrance. Two decades later the brand — now found in more than 20 countries, having recently opened a store in Tokyo — is launching four new scents (for candles and incense), each originating from a favourite from the Glasshouse and created with perfumers Lyn Harris, Sofia Koronaiou and Elizabeth Dowden. There is also a Daylesford geranium-print homeware collection, featuring linens and ceramics.
Perhaps it is a strange thing to say in the garden of a billionaire (Lady Bamford’s husband is Sir Anthony, the chair of JCB), but geraniums are a very accessible passion. You don’t need a climate-controlled glasshouse, or a team of gardeners — they’re happy on a sunny windowsill and love a steamy bathroom. And you get a whole lot for not much effort.
You don’t need a climate-controlled glasshouse to grow geraniums . . . 
. . . they’re happy on a sunny windowsill and love a steamy bathroom
Children love them because they’re quick to thrive, Bamford says, and in some ways her delight in them is similarly straightforward. Geraniums are the good time girls of gardening — easy going, hardy and merrily flowering for eight to nine months of the year. Even their names, Candy Dancer, Vectis Glitter and Apple Betty evoke golden-era cabaret dancers and they come in every pink on the spectrum; it’s easy to fall in love with them.
The plants have a Wonkaesque capacity: rub the leaves of Torrento and reveal the scent of fizzy cola bottles, ruffle Ardwick Cinnamon to be reminded of Christmas
Bamford recalls how, in childhood, the smell of “just two drops” of Floris Rose Geranium bath essence would “spread all over the house”. It’s that nostalgia that she finds compelling; “It takes you back,” she says.
Her collection is ordered alphabetically. We walk through the blooms, from the peony-like Lady M Pilkington to the pansyish Eskay Verglo. “Some even have little faces,” she says. But it is the leaves that fascinate her, because that’s where the scent lives. Walking into the Glasshouse, you’re hit with an abundance of fresh, verdant fragrance but get closer and you’ll discover that the plants have a Wonkaesque capacity for surprising flavours: rub the leaves of Torrento to reveal the scent of fizzy cola bottles, ruffle Ardwick Cinnamon to be reminded of Christmas. Some smell of sherbet, peppermint and bubblegum. It’s a delightful trick, inspiring a full geranium takeover at Daylesford farm shop this summer, when jams, sorbets and other treats will be served under geranium print parasols. It’s a flurry of activity at what is a challenging time for the brand; last year it posted widening pre-tax losses of £3.6mn, despite a 2 per cent increase in revenues to £50.2mn for the year to April 1 2023.
Terracotta pots are preferable — the plants like something porous and should be allowed to dry out between waterings
Bamford’s extensive garden set up, with its perfect potting shed and propagation house, is impressive, but where to begin growing? “With Lemon Kiss, Ardwick Cinnamon and Lady Plymouth,” I am told, briskly. Three easy to propagate, robust specimens, all with different leaves, scents and flowers. Terracotta pots are preferable and not just aesthetically; geraniums prefer something porous. Don’t overwater, wait for them to dry out a bit before a big drink and if you’re keeping them outside, watch the weather because they don’t appreciate a drowning. I’m given a Lemon Kiss. I’m nervous, but gardener Steven Gamble (who Bamford calls “a wonder”, having worked together for 30 years) reassures me, “they’re bomb proof”.
The geranium experience is being recreated for this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show. “I love being part of it,” says Bamford. “And I’m proud of our building, it’s made from four [fallen] oak trees. The aim is to get the most sustainable award for the trade stand, that would really make me happy.” She cares about the details: “There’s a potting bench, rainwater collection, a wormery, beehives — all the things I believe in.”
The garden at Daylesford Farm, both the family home . . . 
. . . and the HQ for Bamford, the lifestyle and wellness brand
In 2008, Daylesford Organic presented the Summer Solstice Garden, which won a Silver Gilt medal. “We took a wheat field and then bought it back here and recycled it. I was the first person to do that,” says Bamford. It took until 2023 for it to be mandated for all Chelsea Flower Show gardens to build a plan to relocate, reuse or repurpose into their vision.
It’s a fitting time to return to Chelsea, not just because the show has proved a useful hunting ground for new geranium varieties in the past, (“I might buy six . . .”, says Bamford), but because geraniums are having something of a moment; there are scented home offerings from C Atherley and Loewe to name a few. She claims no credit for the trend, however: “I follow my instinct. It’s not planned, I don’t [look to be] ahead of the game.” It’s the same across the brand: “When I started [with] organic [practices], I didn’t think I’d have a business or a shop. My daughter was in a pram and they were spraying chemicals all over the field and I thought, that’s not right. I didn’t start a trend; it was a feeling.”
New candles, from £70, come in four geranium scents © Neil Watson Studio
Table napkin, £30, and geranium plate, £55 © Neil Watson Studio
The chalkboard in the potting shed bears an Audrey Hepburn quotation: “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” Curiosity is a characteristic of any collector and Bamford is no exception. “I always think there is something magical around the corner,” she says.
However stressful work is, there’s always time for the greenhouse. She visits, “about three days a week. It grounds me. If I’m ever worried about anything, I walk the dogs to the Glasshouse. Nature nurtures.”
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