A close look at cranesbills

Whether you want to plant up a shady area or smother some weed growth, there is a cranesbill, or hardy geranium, that will meet the task, says Anne Swithinbank

- Anne Swithinbank

THERE cannot be many gardens without one or two hardy geraniums or cranesbills, so-called because of their long, beak-like seed capsules. The genus consists of 300 species from temperate regions of the world and we have a few garden-worthy species growing wild in the UK, including the magenta-flowered bloody cranesbill (G.sanguineum), favouring mainly limestone areas, and the ethereal wood cranesbill (G. sylvaticum) whose loose, upright habit suits the wilder parts of a garden.

Well-established clumps tend to be long-lived, and if you take on a mature garden you might find Geranium x johnsonii ‘Johnson’s Blue’ (a hybrid between meadow cranesbill and G.himalayense) or mats of French cranesbill G. endressii topped by tiny pink flowers. These stalwarts are still worthy, but are now rivalled by a wide choice of plants including sterile hybrids which, unable to set seed, tend to produce larger, longer-lasting flowers over many months. Yet the likes of ‘Rozanne’ and ‘Patricia’ are still popular with bees and other pollinating insects.

When choosing a new cranesbill, we are usually keen for it to perform a particular role. This could be colonising a difficult dry, shady area (I’d go for mourning widow G. phaeum var. phaeum ‘Samobor’ or perhaps the ravishing dusky lilac-flowered G. x monacense ‘Claudine Dupont’).

Container living