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The Wild Geranium
Geranium sanguineum.
AMONGST the many British plants that have found a permanent home in the garden, none is more worthy of it than this. A happy tourist who may trouble to keep his eyes open while riding by rail from Furness to White-haven may obtain without cost a good practical lesson on the cultivation of this beauty. On nearing St. Bees there will be seen in the months of July and August vast sheets of crimson flowers, in some places running up into the sandhills, in others coming down to the railway line, and actually touching the rails themselves. The intensity of the colour of these flowers and their exceeding profusion constitute a great surprise for one versed in plants, but not often privileged to see Geranium sanguineum in its highest state of development. And this lesson is of larger value than may at first appear. Fully nine-tenths of all the smaller flowering plants that are prized in gardens belong to sandy, calcareous, or peaty soils. A very small proportion, and those of a somewhat rank habit of growth, belong to the heavy loams and the deep clays. Those smaller plants with large and lustrous flowers love light, moisture, pure air, a free soil, in which their roots can run freely; but stagnant moisture at their roots and a pasty soil are unfavourable to their full development, and sometimes forbid them to live. Thus we have explained to us that in the London garden, and in any other garden where the soil is heavy and damp, and the atmosphere particularly impure, this crimson geranium becomes rank in growth, and produces but few and palecoloured flowers. And the final lesson, for the present, is, that in forming rockeries for such plants, we must insure perfect drainage, so that the soil may never be water-logged; and provide for the principal bulk of the smaller plants a soil consisting of sandy loam, mere siliceous grit being in many cases necessary to their well-being.
Our wild geraniums are a pretty lot, and find favour with the cultivators of rustic plants. In the books the geraniums are classed as crane's-bills, to distinguish them from pelargoniums, which are stork's-bills, and the erodiums, which have heron's-bills; these descriptive names referring to the resemblance of the seeds to the long-pointed bill of a bird. The dusky crane's-bill (Geranium phoeum), the knotty crane's-bill (G. nodosum), the meadow crane's-bill (G. pratense), and the shining crane's-bill (G. lucidum) are all good garden plants, the last but one in the list being remarkably handsome when well grown. The meadow crane's-bill loves a rich damp soil, and is often semi-aquatic. One of the best places in the world to see it in perfection is Darley Dale, Derbyshire; but it is more often seen in the Yorkshire dales, and is not uncommon in Cumberland. The smaller and more alpine-habited crane's-bills, like the crimson on that gives occasion for these remarks, require a sandy and stony soil. The shining crane's-bill is often seen on ruins and cottage roofs, showing how it loves a dry situation. The Herb-Robert (G. Robertianum) is of similar habit, loving the rocks, and making a most delicate display of colour on them.
Amongst the hardy geraniums that may be added to the foregoing to make a small and interesting collection, the following are of special value for their beauty:--The grey crane's-bill (G. cinereum), the iberian (G. ibericum), the long-rooted (G. macrorhizum), Lambert's (G. Lamberti), the broad-petalled (G. platypetalum), and the striped (G. striatum). These are all showy plants of accommodating constitution, thriving best in deep sandy loam. The best geranium for London is probably the white-flowering (G. aconitifolium), which forms a stout bush, and flowers abundantly.
A selection of erodiums should come in here, for whoever cares to grow one lot will not the less care to grow the other. The best of them for the garden are the showy heron's-bill, (Erodium manescari), the fairy heron's-bill, (E. Reichardi), the Roman (E. romanum), the rock (E. petroeum), and the caraway-leaved (E. caruifolium). These require, like the last-named group, a dry sandy or calcareous soil, and full exposure to air and sunshine. The amateur who has become interested in the hardy geraniums will in due time sigh for hardy pelargoniums, and it happens that there is one that may be so called, for it is a frame plant in London, but will endure the winter in the open border in favourable parts of Devonshire and Cornwall. This is Pelargonium endlicherianum, a very interesting plant with distinctive leafage, and curious flowers that appear to have but two petals, for the remaining three are so small as to be practically invisible. A genuine lover of plants will find much to interest him in the ways and manners of this hardy pelargonium. There is yet another that is so nearly hardy that frame-culture will generally suffice for it, and as regards interest it surpasses the one just named. It is Pelargonium triste, the melancholy stork's-bill, the flowers of which are fragrant at night only.