Great Hardy Geraniums as Ground Covers

Bursting with flowers, hardy geraniums also feature lush foliage, which adds valuable texture to the garden. Incredibly tough, pest and disease-resistant, they give a lot and require very little. Most hardy geraniums are ridiculously easy to grow. All they require is moderately fertile, well-drained soil. A few species are even reliably drought-tolerant in normal summer conditions.

Hardy geraniums forming low mounds of well-formed foliage and dainty flowers make superb flowering ground covers. Flowering at no more than 1 ft. (30cm) high and often much shorter, they earn their place in the smallest garden. They are quite effective as underplantings for trees and shrubs, as well as choking weeds in garden areas that are difficult to cultivate. Most tolerate morning sun and afternoon shade and do best in light shade.

Most bloom profusely over a very long season, extending from late spring to late fall (if cut back hard after the first flush of blooms starts to fade in early summer).

To beautify your landscape, there is a broad array of colors and textures to choose from. If you are looking for a beautiful, low-maintenance, hardy geranium that will sail through the challenges of the seasons, you may want to consider these top-performing varieties. As you will note, some of them have received the prestigious Award of Garden Merit of the Royal Horticultural Society!