I’m just wild about my little fairy flowers
that bloom all summer long in this garden of ours
all dotted around dressed in white, purple and pink
although they are probably just wild flowers I think.
Geranium Little Fairy
The story of the best plant in my garden in May 2015
Herb Robert
No I am not going to say that Geranium Herb Robert is the best plant in my garden in May 2015. However, if I were to leave it to its own devices it would probably take over. It is a pretty little weed but, as they say, a weed is only an unwanted flower that is in the wrong place. I quite like it sitting in one of my old abandoned pots, and can live with the splash of colour it gives to my gravel driveway at the front, with a mass of pink flowers during the summer, and its autumnal coloured leaves later.
How does one choose the best plant in May, the best month in the year in my opinion for my favourite colours:- pink and purple? Well, I just have to go on the performance of the plants in my own garden. It is still a difficult choice. At the beginning of the month I might have chosen my Markham’s Pink Clematis, and at the end my choice would be my Clematis Dr Ruppell. However, Markham’s Pink came and went very quickly, and is still trying to establish itself on the trellis in front of the dog run, being pruned every day by my dog on her side of the trellis. Clematis Dr Ruppell kept its buds tightly shut almost until the end of May when they all came out in a blaze of glory. Maybe that will be June’s plant of the month.
May 2012 plant of the month was all about rampant climbers. May 2015 plant of the month is about a rampant crawler.
My best plant of the month award for May 2015 goes to a lovely tiny flowered, yet very rampant little geranium that I bought years ago from an NGS Open Garden in Great Brington, where its delightful profusion of pretty white, pink and purple flowers scattered everywhere obviously impressed me. My plants also managed to impress my garden crazy friends at the garden party I held for my birthday at the beginning of the month. They all wanted some. I gave away several plants.
I don’t know what it is called, but it spreads everywhere and flowers consistently throughout the summer, shutting its little eyes when the sun goes down, then opening them up again next morning. It pops up all over the place, where you least expect it, all mixed in with other much bigger, more splendiferous plants, almost as if a fairy has been going around the garden scattering her little fairy flowers everywhere. I rarely remove the flowering stems until all the flowers have turned into seed heads. Then it is easy to just pull out. There’s plenty more that will come later.
I absolutely love it. My friends love it. Bees love it.
These little plants were survivors from the garden revamp. Although they only ever grew on the right hand side of the garden, I was delighted to find that somehow a plant had managed to get to the far left hand side of my garden, which I want to be on the wild side. That is the side where my little wildlife pond is. There are no fish in the pond, just frogs and whatever decides to come along to the water. Although I had a supposedly maintenance free gravel garden to replace the old overgrown wilderness and lake sized pond, I only chose gravel because I hate mowing lawns and I don’t like seeing bare earth. I cannot wait for the plants that the landscaper put in to grow to a reasonable size so that I don’t see a beachful of gravel. Meanwhile, now my little wild geranium has moved in, so will more wildlife. The birds already love that little corner, and come in on a regular basis for their drink and splash about in the two bird baths, and in the shallow end of the little pond.
These are photos from 2013 of my garden before my garden revamp, showing how the little fairy scatters her flowers around everywhere.
So like little Geranium Herb Robert, my little fairy flowered geranium is a pretty little wild flower that gets everywhere in my garden too. I like Herb Robert to live for a while but I make sure its weeded away before seed heads come. It’s easy to pull out, like my fairy flowered little darling. I wish I knew what her name is. She’s too pretty to have a boys name, but her flowers are about the same size as Herb Robert, although borne on long stems which creep along the ground, with leaves all the way along as well as more flower stems branching out from each stem. The flower stems can travel about two or three feet from the root. The leaves look like little versions of Geraniums such as Johnson’s Blue.
There are apparently 420 different varieties of geraniums. I’ve Googled and Googled looking for a similar plant, but nothing looks remotely like my little fairy flowers. If anyone knows the real name of this plant, please let me know.
In the meantime, I’ll call her Geranium Little Fairy.
My Garden Transformation 