Pelargonium Stella Bird Dancer

Pelargonium 'Stella Bird Dancer' displays highly cut, sculptural foliage with bicolour tones, and boasts an airy and elegant flowering. This zonal geranium forms a miniature evergreen shrub with green and dark brown-purple dentate foliage. The two colours are perfectly separated and distinct. It blooms from June to September, in small umbels with thin apricot-salmon petals, carried high above the foliage by long petioles. This very pretty variety grows quickly in light and fertile soils, in full sun. It should be wintered frost-free.

Zonal pelargoniums include perennial hybrids from the geranium family, in a large group called Pelargonium x hortorum. They are mostly derived from P. inquinans, native to the southeast tip of Africa, with the contribution of P. zonale and P. frutetorum. This variety forms a small bushy clump with an upright habit, 30cm (12in) in all directions. It flowers from spring to autumn, tirelessly producing an abundance of apricot-salmon single flowers, which are grouped on a long peduncle in an umbel. They open on beautiful dark green and brown-purple foliage. Its sturdy and succulent stems bear cut leaves with toothed edges and a thick texture. The foliage is very healthy.

Once reserved for balconies and patios, pelargoniums are making a notable entrance in sunny flower beds and borders. Plant them en masse to create a lasting and cheerful decoration throughout the summer season. These plants tolerate lack of water quite well, which makes them ideal companions for garden verbenas, unusual blue lobelias, and black or purple-leaved ipomeas (Ipomoea Illusion Midnight Lace, Ipomoea Sweet Heart 'Jet Black'). Create magnificent pots and hanging baskets by combining them with bright pink or red varieties, Million Bells, variegated periwinkles, Dichondra 'Silver Falls', violets, and calibrachoas.