All About Magazine - Issue 17

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Easy plants for difficult places
by Martin Blow -
The hardy geraniums are well-loved plants that seem
to have fallen out of fashion with garden trend-setters
over recent years. I can’t understandwhy: they’re easy
to grow, give great value in the garden and there are
varieties that do well in the most difficult spots.
Commonly called Cranesbills (due to the shape of
their seed pods) they are completely different to
the half-hardy bedding plants many gardeners call
Geraniums – these are really Pelargoniums.
Cranesbills come in many shapes and sizes from
tiny alpines to large bushy monsters 3-4ft tall and
wide. Some, but by no means all, are quite invasive
– I sincerely regret planting Geranium malviflorum
after 5 years of trying to irradiate it. However, most
Geraniums are well-behaved and easy to care for.
Here are some of my favourites for different locations.
For dry, sunny spots you can’t do better than the
Bloodroot Geraniums (G. sanguineum) which are
prostrate plants with a mat of ground-hugging stems
with small slug-resistant leaves. The flowers are large
in relation to the height of plants and come in many
shades of pink as well as white. One of the best is
“Elke” with very large silver-edged pink flowers. I’d
also recommend Striatum (veined pinked flowers),
Glenluce (lavender pink) and Album (pure white).
You can cut these plants hard back after the first
flowering (May – July) and they will respond with
more flowers in August or September.
For shady but not too dry spots the MourningWidow
(Geranium phaeum) makes a good link between
spring and summer with flowers from late April
through to early July. She gets her name from the
mournful, maroon flowers of the wild types, however
there are showier varieties to choose from. My
favourite is Geranium phaeum Album with masses of
pure white flowers to brighten up a dark spot.
For really shady, dry places Geranium Czakor will
provide ground covering, aromatic leaves and
brilliant magenta flowering in early summer. This
really is a tough customer succeeding where most
plants would fail.
My favourite for more open sunny borders is the
lovely, but fairly tall Meadow Cranesbill – Geranium
pratense. These flower in mid-summer and often
repeat in autumn. The best of these is Mrs. Kendall
Clark who has pearly-blue flowers and grows to 2ft
6in – 3ft tall.
Blue geraniums are also very popular, the best being
the low growing Johnson’s Blue but I prefer Gravetye
or Irish Blue as they flower for so much longer. The
double Geranium himilayense Flore Plenum is also
very attractive and low growing. The superstar of
blue Geraniums must be Rozanne – she was voted
plant of Centenary by The Royal Horticultural Society
for very good reason. Here large white-centred blue
flowers smoother the trailing stems of the plant from
June to October and she grows well in partial shade. I
find she makes a lovely container plant as well.
Geraniums can all be cut back after flowering and
some will rebloom but all will grow fresh, attractive
leaves. It’s worth dividing them every few years after
flowering to keep them vigorous. They will benefit
from your normal garden feeding programme – I
feed with Growmore in spring and blood, fish and
bone in summer.
Gravetye or Irish Blue (top), and the superstar of blue
Geraniums, Rozanne (bottom)
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