Friday 16 July 2010

This Weeks Plant From The Garden - Geum

Geum 'Mrs J Bradshaw' was one of the trickiest plants to get settled. It was constantly wilting due to lack of water no matter how much we supplied. A real 'quaffer' this one! Eventually we bought some great drip feeders from Nigel's Eco Store, which utilise old water bottles. Popped one of those on so that it got water all through the day and there was no stopping it. That was last year and as you can see this year it's produced some pretty red flowers, which are only now just starting to flag.
Family: Rosaceae.
Position: Well drained, fertile soil in full sun or partial shade. Ours is in a flower bed that gets sun for most of the day - mid morning 'til early evening and it seems to be fine.
Flowers: Late spring - late summer.
Dimensions: 60cm high x 45cm spread.
Habit: Perrennial herb. The stems are very thin with small flower heads and are prone to leaning over and disappearing into neighbouring plants. Some experts say that the flowers are too small compared to the amount of foliage and I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed with it on the whole.
Care: Water well and leave it alone. I dead head all the spent flowers.
Pruning: Not required. Although I tend to remove any dry and dead foliage.
Propagation: Division in spring or seeds in autumn.
Distribution: Europe, Asia, New Zealand, North/South America and Africa.

Key:
Bold/italics = experts
Everything else = my bit
LxXx

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