Flowers on Friday

On a trip down to the Lizard peninsula last Saturday (before the horrid rain and wind re-appeared) I discovered a whole lot of Geranium sanguineum, (common names bloody crane’s-bill or bloody geranium) that I didn’t see last year. These lovely vivid magenta-pink flowers with palmately-lobed leaves are so much nicer than the Herb Robert and Shining Cranesbill that colonise my garden. Though I do have some of these growing in my gravel garden that were bought from a nursery.

“Oh, do not frown,
Upon this crown
Of green pinks and blue geranium”

– Louisa May Alcott, “Dear Grif”

Macro Monday #83

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Geranium x ‘Magnificum’ from behind.

Plant Portrait

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I often walk around my garden with my camera in one hand and secateurs in the other.  This little moth / butterfly was very busy swooping down on my hardy geraniums that I couldn’t get a clear shot. But I quite like the movement in this one and hope you do too.

 

 

Macro Monday #31

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Another pretty hardy geranium with silvery pink petals and magenta veins. After a month without the Olympus this is one of my first ones taken with the 60mm macro lens.

Macro Monday #29

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The third variety of hardy geranium in my garden is this beautiful violet-blue with dark purple veins and a magenta eye.  This might be Geranium x magnificum ‘Rosemoor‘. The nice thing about the hardy varieties (of which there are hundreds) is that it comes back year after year. They’re tough and easy to grow, many flowering for months at a stretch

Macro Monday #28

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Another hardy geranium in the garden. This one could be ‘Mavis Simpson‘ a low and spreading, almost evergreen plant has lobed silvery foliage which makes a lovely background for the pink flowers which themselves have a silver overlay as well as dark veins.

Macro Monday #27

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This lovely hardy geranium is blooming in my garden. Since I didn’t plant it I do not know what variety is, but possibly ‘Dilys‘ with lovely purple-veined magenta pink flowers