Monday, February 22, 2010

Plant Discovery

Garden shows always prove my lack of will power when it comes to resisting plant purchases. The Yard, Garden & Patio Show was no exception, although I resisted until the last day of the show. What started my plant slurge? A purple-leaved hardy geranium! Geranium pratense 'Midnight Reiter' will have deeply cut plum-purple (also described as chocolaty-purple) leaves if planted in full sun to part shade (the more sun it has, the more purple the leaves). The plant's description on the package from specialty nursery Woodland Gardens (Washington) states the flowers are nearly true blue. And it offers a very compact form, only 9 inches by 15 inches. I was very tempted to buy more than one, but at $15 for a dormant root, I decided to see how it does this year at the front of my well-drained sunny border. What cool plants have you found this spring?

1 comment:

  1. I have three, paid considerably less than that mail order several years ago. I would not call them true blue but then I'm very anal about color names having been a florist for over twenty years. They are a nice clump forming perennial geranium. The leaves get a color on them that is almost teal. Very pretty and unusual.

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