Flower of the week: Geranium ‘Brookside’

[callmemadam]

It’s too windy today (again!) to get a decent photograph but I’ve done my best. Several hardy geraniums have started flowering this month. ‘Brookside’ is one I like so much that I brought some with me from my old garden. It will sprawl in dry weather but is usually a neat plant and no trouble at all. A bonus is that once the first flush of flowers is over you can cut it to the ground, after which tough treatment it will regenerate and give you more flowers in September. More information here. At one time I grew about one hundred different varieties of geranium, so I think I'm in a position now to say which I think are the best.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Beautiful. Only my common pink one has started to flower but the rest are coming on in leaps and bounds with all the sunshine this week.
wee sister

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

The geraniums don't seem to notice how cold it is :-)

This one is actually bluer than it looks in the pic. I always find blue a difficult colour to photograph.

[auntyros.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think I have this! I have been looking at it for the last couple of days wondering what it is and where it came from. I don't think I planted it! But it is very pretty and I shall encourage it.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

lucky you, if so. But if it came from nowhere it's more likely to be Geranium grandiflorum. Check the leaves; the foliage of Brookside is more finely cut.

[auntyros.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I will go out and examine more closely.

[auntyros.livejournal.com]

I have looked. The leaves are very finely cut but the flower is pale - almost white - with purple veining. It does look very like your photo, but if your flowers are bluer, mine are not.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Now I'm really intrigued! G. grandiflorum has flowers that are a purplish blue, certainly not 'nearly white', so that guess was wrong.

[auntyros.livejournal.com]

I will try to take a photo tomorrow!

[auntyros.livejournal.com]

And here are the leaves:

You can see it's grown up defiantly amongst a not-very-well tended part of my garden, where I am sure I have never planted geraniums!

[auntyros.livejournal.com]

Here's the flower. The colours look fairly true to life on my screen, though from a distance it does have a slight bluish tinge:

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

If it's fairly low growing, I think it may be Kashmir White?

A nice one.

[auntyros.livejournal.com]

That certainly looks like it. And it is named after me, being a geranium clarkei. So that is excellent. Thank you!

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Jolly good!

[joan kyler (from livejournal.com)]

Brookside is one I've grown and loved. I would like to have seen your other varieties. I grew others, too, but without looking in my gardening notes, I can't tell you which. They have lovely flowers and lovely foliage, too.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

There's a geranium for every situation in the garden. What would we do without them?

You can see a few of the ones I used to grow here. 2008.

[gwendraith.livejournal.com]

Lovely colour! I have one hardy geranium I put in last year and it's coming on well but no flowers yet.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Something to look forward to!

[hartleyhare.livejournal.com]

These are gorgeous. I love geraniums. I'd forgotten about cutting them right back and watching them reflower; will remember to do that in a few weeks!

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

They are such useful plants, as well as being pretty. Not all varieties will flower again. The common pink endressii types will.