Botanical name: Geranium pyrenaecium  ‍ ‍
Folk names: mountain cranesbill, mountain geranium

Type: Perennial

Wildlife: Nectar for shorter-tongued bumblebees, solitary bees and hoverflies.

Flowers: Anytime from May to August

Decorative merit: Dainty little mauve or blueish pink flowers on steams that decoratively adorn the stems of taller flowers in the border or a container. Rosettes of rounded leaves.

Where: Sun and part shade. Beneath a hedge of course! Also a great space-filler for a border and for wilder parts of the garden where it can grow amidst tufts of grass beneath hedges or providing helpful ground cove. One plant decided to pop up around red campion near my back gate, helpfully extending the flowers in that patch.

Folklore: The rounded, open shape of cranesbills made them popular as button-hole decorations and for picking petals to make romantic decisions but maybe these little hedge flowers were overlooked?

Geranium relative of meadow cranesbill

Donate seeds to Exeter Seed Bank