Mind the gap
FOR SOMETHING STUNNING TO FILL SPACES IN BORDERS, GO FOR GERANIUMS
IF YOU’RE LOOKING
GAPS – we all have them. In beds and borders they pop up when we least expect them, when something dies or else we decide we don’t like a plant that has never done well and we dig it out. Then, just when the garden is meant to be looking its best, there’s a hole to be filled.
But do not despair. Nurseries and garden centres are full of fillers. It seems an unkind name to give a plant but some of them are born to spend their lives in the back row of the chorus, rather than taking their place as front-line stars, and the garden would be a poorer place without them. It is into this category that geraniums fall. Not the brightly coloured “geraniums” that we should really call pelargoniums. No, I mean the true hardy geraniums – the cranesbills. They get this common name on account of the shape of their seed heads, but the flowers that precede them are produced with amazing generosity from late spring until early autumn, depending on variety. The mourning widow, Geranium phaeum, with its dusky purple flowers, is about the first to flower in April and it also has a white variety. A good chop and a good drink work wonders in late May. Most other varieties are coming into their own right now. I love ‘Mavis Simpson’, a well-behaved mound former that smothers itself in pink flowers from one end of summer to the other. It grows about a foot high and is great at the front of a border.
Taller, and useful further back, is ‘Claridge Druce’, which has pale-pink flowers veined with a deeper shade.
‘Wargrave Pink’ has a hint of salmon in its make-up and is inclined to flop, so a few twiggy pea sticks are useful around it, and ‘Rozanne’ is a
good blue that will spread well. So, if you find yourself with an embarrassing hole in your border, treat yourself to a few hardy geraniums. They will repay you with masses of delicate flowers from now until the frosts of autumn.
Some plants are born to spend their lives in the back row of the chorus