Plant Profile

Geums
By Trips Secretary, Elizabeth Rees

'At the beginning of May I visited the Malvern Spring Festival and Geums featured in just about every show garden, and on a lot of plant stalls. They are colourful herbaceous perennials valued for their displays of late spring and summer flowers, and have grown in popularity over the past few years, mainly due to new selections that bear more flowers on both tall and short, compact plants, very useful and dependable in gardens. 

The well-known old varieties red, Mrs J Bradshaw and yellow, Lady Stratheden are not long lived plants, surviving for up to four years, but newer hybrids can thrive for ten years. 

Geums are easy to grow and are mainly problem free. Deadheading helps produce more flowers - this involves taking the whole flowering stem out to the bottom rosette of leaves at the base. 

Some geums tolerate all soil types, others prefer more specific conditions. Check the label shade to see if they prefer moisture and cool shade, a woodland garden setting, or a sunny spot but where the soil doesn't dry out on a summer afternoon. 

Scarlet Tempest is a striking border plant with semi-double red flowers that will continue, until autumn if deadheaded. Totally tangerine has single, soft tangerine flowers and will also flower until autumn if deadheaded regularly. 

Can Can produces flowers with frilly-edged petals varying from soft yellow to apricot hues in early summer.

There are many more excellent varieties available, varying in height, colour, and flowering periods, and mix well in herbaceous borders with plants such as salvias, nepeta, alliums, gaura and anthemis. They could also be used within mixed plantings in large containers.

And best of all, as well as being popular with people, they are also loved by polliantors!