Geranium pratense Cloud Nine

The Geranium pratense 'Cloud Nine' has won the silver medal at the HTA National Plant Show 2017 in England. This superb improvement of the meadow cranesbill with double flowers is a charming and vigorous variety, unaffected by diseases and pests and easy to control as it does not produce seeds. This perennial quickly forms a large clump of finely cut foliage and is adorned with exquisite, well-double flowers in a soft and luminous blue-mauve in late spring and late summer. Stunning in a romantic border, it will accompany all the plants in the garden, as well as roses and all your favourite bushes.

Floriferous, generous, and easy to grow, perennial geraniums have everything going for them. Especially since, unlike Balcony Geraniums (which are actually Pelargoniums) with which they are sometimes confused, they are perfectly hardy, at least down to -15°C (5°F), and therefore remain in the ground all winter.

Originally from Europe, Central Asia, and China, and belonging to the Geraniaceae family, Geranium pratense is the origin of many cultivars with very easy-to-grow single or double flowers in any good garden soil that remains fresh, in sun or partial shade.

The 'Cloud Nine' variety is a beautiful novelty recently obtained by a small English nursery. The plant, particularly vigorous, has a bushy clump-like habit, almost shrubby, with a medium height of 80-90 cm (32-35in) and almost as wide. Its flowers, borne on branched stems, are delightful; cup-shaped, they are composed of several rows of petal shells that open like small mauve roses turning blue, sometimes delicately tinged with pink. Its abundant and recurrent flowering generally takes place in two stages: first in May-June, then again in August-September. Rich in nectar, it attracts and nourishes many pollinating insects. The foliage is semi-evergreen to deciduous, composed of small, finely cut, polygonal leaves, spring green, pubescent, measuring 20 cm (8in) long, almost all along the robust and hairy stems.

Easy to grow and not very demanding, this Cloud Nine meadow cranesbill tolerates any ordinary soil that is not too dry, and its beauty would rival the best varieties of Hellebores. In the garden, perennial geraniums can be planted almost anywhere, they are unmatched in enhancing neighboring plants; in rockeries, borders, in a woodland setting with wood anemones, ferns, and Woodrushes, near ground cover roses which they elegantly dress the base of, along borders with other varieties of double-flowered geraniums, and even in large pots. They are perfect companions for peonies, hybrid mulleins, or oriental poppies in cottage gardens.