Eleanor Clarke
OUTDOOR PLANTS
Everything you need to know about hardy geraniums
Where would we be without hardy geraniums? They’re some of the most versatile garden plants around, with varieties that are happy in full sun, dry shade and everything in between. They come in a rainbow of, generally, soft, romantic colours, and they’re so undemanding that, if they weren’t so pretty, it would be easy to forget they’re there, flowering away contentedly for weeks on end without the slightest complaint. In fact, choose wisely and you’ll have a succession of colour from as early as April, taking you (and the bees – pollinators adore the single, open flowers of hardy geraniums) right through to the chills of November.
There are varieties of hardy geranium whose foliage morphs to rose-tinted shades in autumn, others with striking deep burgundy leaves from the get-go. A few are evergreen, holding onto their leaves over winter to give you year-round interest in the garden. Many make great weed-suppressing ground cover and plenty are keen self-seeders, giving you more plants for free as the years go by.
Geraniums, not perlargoniums
Hang on, did someone mention Swiss chalets and window boxes? If that’s where your head’s at, stop right there. We’re talking perennial hardy geraniums here, sometimes known as cranesbills – not the bright pink/red/white tender plants popular in window boxes across Europe. These are confusingly also called geraniums, but their correct name is pelargonium, which is a completely different species of plant.
Hardy geraniums in your garden
This is such a large and varied group of plants that there really is one to suit pretty much every spot in the garden. Most hardy geraniums thrive in light or dappled shade, although the smaller alpine varieties prefer a spot in full sun. A few are undaunted by fairly deep shade. For dappled shade we love G. phaeum. Its leaves are beautifully palmate, sometimes mottled painterly with purple, and the flowers sway on tall sprays above the foliage, in deep claret, royal purple, dusky pink or white, depending on the cultivar.
For dry shade, it’s hard to beat Geranium macrorrhizum (more below), G. macrorrhizum ‘Ingwersen’s Variety’ or G. x oxonianum ‘Wargrave Pink’. If you have a sunny rockery or gravel garden, try something like the mini powerhouse that is G. cinereum ‘Ballerina’: with its scalloped grey-green leaves and icy-pink flowers it’s a real beauty. The sylvaticum types are particularly drought resistant.
Height-wise hardy geraniums also span quite a range, with some as petite as 10cm, others growing up to a metre. As always, it makes sense to use height to inform how far back in borders to plant them, and consider the smaller ones for rockeries and gravel gardens, where they’ll be happy and easy to look after. If you just have a patio, most are fine in pots, although .
What to plant alongside hardy geraniums?
Hardy geraniums sit happily alongside a huge range of different plants. First and foremost, they’re classic rose companions. Their foliage hides the bare legs of the rose, and the two flower at once, with fabulous results, so experiment with colours and varieties. A pale pink shrub rose with a purple/blue geranium and silver-leaved stachys is a lovely romantic combo. In part shade, add foxgloves and astrantias too. In gravel or rock gardens, contrast the colourful mounds of geraniums with grasses such as Stipa tenuissima, alliums (pop the geraniums in front; they’ll bulk up in spring to hide the spent leaves of the alliums), lavender and Mexican fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus).
How to look after hardy geraniums
If you’re an inconsistent gardener (join the club and ditch the garden guilt!), hardy geraniums are a whole lot more than a safe bet. They’re happy in most kinds of soils, although it’s always worth digging in some leaf mould or well-rotted garden compost if you have the typical clay soil of London. They need very little in terms of upkeep, although a light trim after flowering will often result in fresh new foliage and, sometimes, a second flush of flowers in August or September (some – ‘Rozanne’ is the first to come to mind – just keep going all the way through, June to November without so much as a pause for breath).
Neither will your geraniums need complex protection from garden pasts. They’re tough plants and even if your garden is full of slugs and snails, you can put your feet up: they won’t touch your hardy geraniums.
A spring mulch of compost or well-rotted horse manure is always a welcome boost for hardy geraniums, and important if you’re growing in pots, as your compost will soon run out of nutrients.
10 of our all-time favourites
- G. Rozanne
Award-winning lavender-blue geranium with flowers that go on and on, from June to November. For sun or part shade
60 x 80cm
- macrorrhizum
Excellent for tricky areas of dry shade (and sun too). It’ll soon spread to form dense clumps of attractive foliage, topped from May to September with clusters of deep pink flowers
75 x 45cm
- sanguinatum var. striatum
Ice-pink veined, almost striped flowers June to September. Compact, mat-forming and drought tolerant. Great in a rock garden or gravelled area
15 x 30cm
- G. sanguineum ‘Album’
One for a sunny spot, this geranium has pure white flowers in early to mid summer, and small lobed leaves with good autumn colour
30 x 40cm
- phaeum
Tall, with dusky purple flowers or try the white ‘Album’ cultivar, both great for adding colour to a semi-shaded spot in late spring and early summer
1m x 80cm
- G. ‘Patricia’
Dazzling pink with black centres. So much flower power (from June to August) and red-orange autumn foliage
60 x 60cm
- G. ‘Sanne’
Eyecatching deep bronze, lobed leaves and pure-white flowers from June to August
20 x 40cm
- x johnsonii ‘Johnson’s blue’
A classic geranium with lavender-blue flowers from early to late summer; a really colourful groundcover plant for sun or light shade
45 x 60cm
- G. x oxonianum ‘Wargrave Pink’
A vigorous geranium with pink flowers that’s brilliant for dry shade, quickly forming a lush mat of colour
60 x 90cm; sun/shade
- G. pratense ‘Mrs Kendall Clark’
Tall and elegant, with pale blue-grey flowers in early summer, and beautiful finely cut foliage. Great in sun or part shade
90 x 60cm
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