Geranium wallichianum 'Buxton's Variety'

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Price:  £5.00 Notify me when this item is available Brand:  The Plantsman's Preference Family:  Geraniaceae Main Season:  Summer Flower Colour:  Blue Leaf Colour:  Green Foliage:  Deciduous Position:  Light/Part Shade Soil Type:  Good, moist, humus-rich Height:  15cm to 30cm (6" to 12") Peat Free?  Yes Hardiness Guide:  RHS H7 minimum at least -20C Pot Size:  9cm Availability:      None available at present. View our Pot Size guide:

Treasured form has spode blue flowers with large white centres. Doesn’t show its true colour till late summer with cooler, damper weather. Plant it deeper in cool humusy soil in light shade or open position with a good mulch. More or less prostrate.

A typical example of a single form of a species being introduced from the wild leaving gardener's with the false impression that it is the only colour that the species comes in.  The reality for Geranium wallichianum (and others) is that this form is not typical of the species as a whole at all and more recent introductions have helped to demonstrate this.

Late to emerge in spring the small clumps of leaves soon start to produce the flowering stems with larger, gently marbled, leaves.  From mid summer the flowers are produced, mauve-blue to start with becoming the desired clear blue as autumn arrives but all the time the white centre is obvious.

Ideal to grow through a partner plant that will give interest in the first half of the year and help to shade the roots of the Geranium.  Lamium maculatum, Corydalis flexuosa and Dicentra formosa are all ideal as they perform well before the Geranium but are not big enough to swamp it.

An old cultivar dating back to at least 1920 but ultimately almost certainly wild collected.