Geranium maculatum Stormy Night

The Stormy Night Perennial Geranium is a remarkably colourful selection of the American Geranium, with foliage tinted mahogany and bronze serving as a backdrop for adorable little flowers in mauve pink with white centers. It develops a robust and vigorous stump, slightly carpeting, but with a light and airy growth habit. The flowers bloom in late spring and early summer. It is an excellent perennial for humid or even marshy soils, and also adapts to drier shade.

The Geranium maculatum Stormy Night is a recent horticultural creation. Its wild ancestor originates from boreal America, in eastern and western Canada and the southeastern United States, where it grows in the moist understory of mountains. The Stormy Night geranium is a perennial plant that reaches a height of 60 cm (24in), with a thick and vigorous stump, and upright hairy stems of reddish-brown color. The plant has an airy appearance while being erect. Fast growing, it blooms in the first part of summer, from late May to July. The flowers, single, are grouped in 3 to 5 on peduncles about 5 to 7 cm (2 to 3in) long originating from the hairy floral stem. The petals are slightly lobed, colored mauve pink, slightly veined, and cream white at the base. The foliage is pubescent, with shiny deeply divided leaves, consisting of 5 to 7 lobes and strongly veined, carried by long petioles measuring 25 to 35 cm (10 to 14in). The colour of this foliage varies from reddish-brown to chocolate bronze. The aerial, deciduous vegetation dries up in autumn and regrows in spring.

The flowering of this Stormy Night Geranium is bright, its foliage is colourful, and the plant has a light habit; it is hard not to notice it in an understory. It can be very well used as a ground cover and tolerates the company of other plants. It is ideal for the second plan of shaded flower beds, its foliage fills the space from spring to autumn. In the understory, it is a good companion for acid-green euphorbias and pastel-toned lungworts. The phaeum geranium and nodosum geranium will fulfill the same functions in shade. Place it along a north or east-facing path, among ferns and bergenias, in front of hydrangeas, rhododendrons, or camellias. It will blend well with all shade and partial shade perennials. It is also a plant that can be placed on the edge of water features.