Giant Geraniums

When we lived in The Catlins these plants were already on the property, by the driveway near the house. They were very showy when they flowered and over time they self-seeded further along the edge of the driveway and carpark. We’d get frosts and sometimes snow in winter, seemingly endless rain, and yet every summer there’d still be lots of flowers from these wonderful plants! I’m assuming they did well because of being by the gravel driveway.

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I’ve done this post for Ann Mackay because she’d  posted about geraniums  and we had a discussion about Geranium maderense. I thought that’s what we’d had but after further reading I’m confused. Perhaps they were Geranium canariensis (now G. reuteri) which are a bit more hardy than the maderense.

All photos taken by Nigel.

Click on any photo to enlarge.

Here’s the giant geraniums that we had, backed by Dierama (angel’s fishing rod). There were some larger giants on the other side of the driveway but I couldn’t find any photos.

Same Dierama, backed by the giant geranium flowers.

This was a self-seeded plant. It quickly grew higher than my Cordyline ‘Green Goddess’ but did no harm as plenty of light could still get through.

Same plant, flower detail.  Both photos taken 06 Dec 2015.

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A seedling came up by our deck and I let it grow. Nigel took photos at various dates in the month of December.

04 Dec (2 photos)

15 December (1 photo)

23 December (1 photo)

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Finally, another giant geranium growing at Hereweka Garden (Otago Peninsula, near Dunedin). From memory I think this is more what our bigger plants looked like when the flowers matured but I don’t recall if they were as tightly ball-shaped as this.

Whatever giant geranium it was that we had, I’d always be really happy to have them in my garden!

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Text by Liz, photos by Nigel; Exploring Colour (2019)