good plants for beginners

Perennial geraniums are easy to plant and very simple to live with. They are perennials, that is, they come back year after year.

If you are new to gardening, these are almost infallible plants. On one condition: choose the right species or the right variety, and there, you really have to find out.

Aurore Ducreux cultivates a magnificent collection of perennials in her Roche Saint-Louis nursery, in Sainte-Pazanne, in Loire-Atlantique. To start, you should know that a perennial geranium has nothing to do with the one installed in window boxes:

“When we talk about geraniums, we often think of the flowers that we see in summer in balcony boxes, on houses in Alsace, in front of town halls. They bloom well, love the sun and heat, but they are annual plants that do not survive the winter. The perennial geranium lives a very long time. He returns faithfully year after year.”

“There are species and varieties for all situations, shade, sun, partial shade, dry ground, cool ground…”

Aurore Ducreux, nurseryman

at franceinfo

The most planted perennial geranium is called ‘Rozanne’. This variety is a nugget. Word from a gardener: it flowers six months of the year. The flowers are blue with a white centre. It grows in both sun and partial shade.

‘Rozanne’ can even adopt a slightly climbing temperament, as in my small, very planted garden, where this geranium has developed stems a meter high in the lower branches of a black elderberry!

Other perennial cranesbills, cranesbills (G. sanguineum) are even able to bloom again at the end of the year in mild climates!

“These geraniums bloom at several times of the year. And in an oceanic climate, they are able to be in bloom at Christmas. These blood cranesbills have another advantage: their foliage is evergreen, even in very cold weather.”

– Perennial geraniums prevent the growth of “weeds”. They are excellent ground covers.

– They are planted both in the fall and in the spring.

– They grow in the garden but also in pots, on a terrace or a balcony in well-drained pots.

– Delightful effect guaranteed if you plant them “English style” in groups of three.