Planting Partners

Hardy geraniums can prove invaluable for hiding the ‘bare legs’ of roses in summer, creating a fulsome and colour-packed display that is the epitome of the cottage garden look. ‘Rozanne’ is a very good geranium for this purpose because it is a vigorous spreader, and its near-constant flowering will ensure that when the roses bloom, they are accompanied by colour underneath.

Alliums make handy partners for planting in the gaps between early flowering hardy geraniums, to add an extra layer of colour at the start of summer. Alliums can look a little lost in ones and twos, so it is better to be generous and plant them in threes, fives or sevens between hardy geraniums in autumn.

In a new garden border that is looking bare while the plants take time to fill the space, mixing hardy geraniums with nigella, or love-in-a-mist, is an easy way to quickly cover the ground with charming colour. Nigella is a hardy annual and can be sown directly onto the soil in March, to flower in the same year. Sowing it around the edges of hardy geraniums will provide a special show in June, when these plants can flower together.