Geranium psilostemon ^AGM

Geraniaceae

Geranium psilostemon

Habitat: sunny places Flowering: summer Height: 50 cm Width: 50 cm Soil: any good garden soil

This is a most valuable genus, providing colour over a long period from early summer. Many varieties are suitable for the herbaceous border, but there are also many that are of a size appropriate for rock garden use.

		Geranium 'Ballerina' (Cinereum Group) has purplish pink flowers with red veining and dark eyes; greyish foliage. Extremely pretty rock plant.
		Geranium 'Bertie Crûg' produces a succession of pale violet flowers throughout the summer. Dark bronze-green leaves.
		Geranium macrorhizum 'Ingwersen's variety' is a selected form of this excellent ground-cover species with lighter green, aromatic leaves and soft lilac-pink flowers in summer.
		Geranium macrorhizum 'White-Ness' is a white-flowered variant of what is probably the best ground-cover plant we have. It grows on our sunniest banks and under trees, quickly spread to cover ground, virtually completely excluding weeds. It is easy to get extra plants by tucking stems under the soil, and it is equally easy to get rid of surplus simply by pulling stems.
		Geranium magniflorum is a lovely small plant, suitable for a rock garden, originating in the Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa. It has the finest delicate, lacy foliage, grey-green, and quite large purplish blue flowers, with several darker streaks on each petal.
		Geranium orientalitibeticum is a very compact alpine variety with creamy-spotted leaves. In summer pinkish-purple flowers, with a white eye, appear over a long period.
		Geranium palmatum is a striking plant, in or out of flower. It makes a strongly branched structure with palm-like leaves, and then has large sprays of vivid pink flowers with mcuh darker pink, almost red, at their centres. It is a native of the Canary Islands, so isn't fully hardy in the coldest parts of Britain, but it will self-seed, and grows quickly.
		Geranium phaeum 'Album' is the pure white-flowered form.
		Geranium renardii has white through to lavender blue flowers with purple veining to the petals. The leaves are very attractive, sage green and forming a rounded clump.
		Geranium sanguineum bears numerous magenta flowers over a long flowering period.
		Geranium sessiliflorum subsp. novae-zelandiae 'Nigricans' has unusual rosette forming bronze coloured leaves. In the summer it bears loose cymes of erect, funnel shaped small white flowers. It seeds freely and is well suited to an alpine habitat.
		Geranium shikokianum is a clump-forming perennial with marbled, lobed and toothed foliage. It produces white-centred pinky purple, funnel-shaped flowers with purple veins. Great autumn colour.
		Geranium 'Summer Skies' is a good introduction for the herbaceous border. It has a relatively compact habit, and unusual tight double flowers, which are a very pale lilac blue. It can be lightly trimmed after flowering, in which case a second or even a third flush of flowers can be produced.
		Geranium sylvaticum 'Mayflower' comes from damp meadows, in Europe and beyond. This particular form has very fine violet-blue, white-eyed flowers.
		Geranium wallichianum 'Buxton's Variety' is a fine Geranium, coming true from seed. Its flowers are a light purplish blue, with large white centres and red stamens.