MOURNING WIDOW
I have to admit that it is hard to recommend that people spice up their gardens with a plant nicknamed “the mourning widow.” To add insult to injury, the authoritative guide Hortus Third, describes the species’ flower color as “sordid lilac.” Both those phrases sound positively Victorian and completely uninspiring. In reality, Geranium phaeum or the dusky cranesbill, doesn’t give that impression at all. It probably got the nickname because its blossoms tend to be unprepossessing and dark–almost black in some cultivars–and it grows best in dappled shade. Despite that, the mourning widow can bring a lot of interest to the garden and has the added virtue of preferring shady conditions.
Hardy geraniums have grown so popular in the last fifteen years, that many people already know the difference between them and pelargoniums, which are the traditional front porch or window box geraniums. The two genera belong to the same botanical family, Geraniaceae, but while pelargoniums are not cold hardy and often end up on the compost pile sometimes between Labor Day and Halloween, hardy geraniums are perennial. The most popular pelargoniums have big, showy flowerheads, while hardy geraniums have smaller, more delicate individual flowers. I am democratic when it comes to the Geraniaceae and I grow lots of pelargonium and hardy geranium. The “hardies” are an especially good garden investment, as most of them need very little cosseting and will increase when they are happy. I know that eventually, plants meeting that description will be the only plants that I will grow. I have started down that road already by investing in more and more hardy geraniums each year.
Geranium phaeum, which was first described by Linnaeus in the eighteenth century, is native to Europe. The word “geranium” is derived from the Greek word “geranos”, meaning “crane”. The crane part comes from the appearance of the plants’ seedheads, which have a round base and a long pointed tip, resembling a crane’s bill. Because of this trait, which is shared by the other hardy geraniums, the genus as a whole is often known as the “cranesbills”. “Phaeum” comes from the Latin “phaeus”, which means dark or dusky, hence the species’ common name, dusky cranesbill.
I was slow to cotton to the mourning widow because of the uninspiring name. But last week I was looking at one of the new catalogs and saw G. phaeum ‘Springtime’. I was in love. Its dark purple, five-petaled flowers are the color of the deepest purple pansies and are about one inch wide. The plant is a medium-sized variety, topping out at about twenty inches tall, with deeply dissected leaves that are variegated, with white marbling, in the spring. By summer the leaves metamorphose into solid green with a maroon blotch in the center of each leaf. As with other hardy geraniums, the leaves persist well into the fall. I can easily imagine replacing some of the ever present ivy in my back garden with a few ‘Springtime’ geraniums and waiting for them to multiply.
‘Springtime’ was introduced by Darwin Plants, a Dutch-based merchandiser and exporter of perennials that is now part of American industry leader, Ball Horticultural. Plant lovers know that the Netherlands and Great Britain are among the modern hotbeds of plant breeding and the source of many great new varieties.
Among the most popular of the foreign-bred phaeums is ‘Samobor’, which has burgundy flowers on upright stems. Like ‘Springtime’, ‘Samobor’ has green leaves blotched with maroon. Discovered at a nursery in England, ‘Samobor’ is a naturally occurring variant of a variety native to Croatia, and is named after a town there. Another British import with slightly less somber blossoms is ‘Margaret Wilson’, with flowers described as “light bluish-purple” and variegated leaves. To lighten things up a bit further, try G. phaeum ‘Album’, which, as the name suggests has white flowers and green foliage.
Aside from the shade that befits their “mourning” status, the phaeums insist on uniformly moist soil. In times of drought, this means extra irrigation. They are certainly not flowers for arrangements, except possibly small ones, but they provide piquant dots of garden color. If you choose varieties with more cheerfully colored flowers like G. phaeum ‘Rose Madder’, with rose-colored blooms, or G. phaeum var. lividum ‘Joan Baker’, with light pink flowers, you can emerge from mourning all together.
By far the best selection of phaeums and most other hardy geraniums is found on a website, www.geraniaceae. Geraniaceae is a small nursery in Marin County, California. On the website the owners make reference to a printed catalog, which can probably be obtained by writing to Geraniaceae at 122 Hillcrest Ave, Kentfield, CA 94904, (415) 461-4168. Curiously, ‘Springtime’ is not among Geraniaceae’s offerings. To obtain it, go to Van Bourgondien, P.O. Box 2000, Virginia Beach, VA 23450, (800) 622-9959, www.dutchbulbs.com. Free catalog.