Hi fellow gardeners. We have a plant growing in our outdoor garden that is defying identification. We don't know what to do with it as the foliage is rather attractive although the flowers are rather non-descript considering the magnificence of the leaves. However, the plant keeps getting larger throughout the season and is rapidly outgrowing its adopted plot. Local nurseries are rather stumped as to the species. Is it a weed that needs eradication perhaps? Can someone on this board can give us an idea to what it is? Thanks.
Welcome to this amazing site. Looks very much like Geranium palmatum. It will seed around and pop up in all sorts or places! I love the leaves and don't treat it as a weed.
Thanks for the prompt reply ..and help, Luddite@machen ! Yep, my A-Z Encyclopedia concurs. After further analysis I may have narrowed it down to g.maderense, although g.palmatum seems very close too. Whatever, it seems a geranium. Makes sense after viewing other more domesticated geraniums around here. I even managed to id another common 'wild' groundcover plant in our garden beds, the g. sanguineum (Bloody Cranesbill) Great site! GardenPath
Sorry but the flowers are very different in G.palmatum x maderense.Pretty sure it is not that. see http://images.google.com/imgres?img...microsoft:en-gb:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7SUNA&sa=N I should have said G.maderense, sorry if I confused things!!!!!
Hmm.. the caption for g.maderense does indeed say it is a greenhouse plant in the UK which makes me think it is less than hardy. Ours definitely overwintered here in Saanich in some below 0 weather stretches with no problems. Our stems are not brown but fleshy green with a fine mat of mauve hairs on them. And the flower is indeed closer to the g.palmatum. So yes, I now agree g.palmatum is closer as you pointed out (see also): http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/61329/ Looks like the pic in A-Z is misleading - - the discription less than accurate. lol Thanks! GardenPath
Don't know about crosses between the two but you should be able to conclusively figure out which of the two it is from descriptions. Probably it is one or the other, rather than a hybrid unless someone here is seeing something in your picture pointing to hybridity.
Ron B. I find the naming of plants so confusing. I checked the R.H.S.Plant Finder for upto date spelling, here I found G. palmatum x maderense. The web link just calls it G.maderense.However there is also a straight G .maderense listed in the Plant Finder.I just picked the wrong one. Sorry for any confusion.
Probably somebody in UK is selling a cross, listed as G. palmatum x maderense, and that's what you saw.
Ron B, you've got it ,"Crug Farm nursery" sell it. Rather a special place ,ever year Sue and Blethyn Wynn-Jones go plant collecting (sometimes with their friend Dan Hinkley). They are the only place, outside of Kew to have permission for a quarantine unit,to make sure nothing they bring back has any nasty pathogens. It sells sooo many rare plants. http://www.crug-farm.co.uk/
