These indispensable perennials offer distinctive leaves and simple flowers in white and shades of blue and pink. There are plants for almost any climate, in a range of sizes from 5-inch buns to 5-foot giants. In an era of highly hybridized, flamboyant plants and doubled flowers, hardy geraniums are modest and restful to the eye. They are versatile perennials that thrive everywhere.
Fine Gardening Recommended Products
Pruning Simplified: A Step-by-Step Guide to 50 Popular Trees and Shrubs
Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.
Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes
Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.
The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees
Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.
Noteworthy CharacteristicsGeraniums occur as wildflowers widely—around the world from alpine slopes to low grasslands and woodlands—so there’s likely to be a geranium for any garden from USDA Hardiness Zone 1 (below -50°F) to the mild-winter areas of California and Florida. With the simple charm of wildflowers, they fill niches in woodland settings, perennial borders and rock gardens and can visually link shrubs to more formal and brightly colored perennials.
CareThe majority need only reasonably fertile, reasonably moist soil. A few prefer gritty, well-drained soil.
PropagationHardy geraniums are easy to propagate. Most can be started from seeds in the spring or divided at any time during the growing season.
ProblemsMost are not troubled by pests and diseases.
