Geranium oxonianum Sherwood

The perennial geranium, oxonianum 'Sherwood', offers an abundant and very unusual flowering of great delicacy. Its fresh pink flowers are 5-branched stars, with a white center adorned with a small crown of 5 small scarf-shaped petals. This plant is also provides excellent ground cover, with beautiful vigor, which renews its strange flowering from May to September, above beautiful bluish-green evergreen foliage. Content with rainwater in summer, it is a hardy and accommodating plant that will thrive in full sun, planted in the garden or in a pot.

The perennial geranium oxonianum 'Sherwood' belongs to the Geraniaceae family. It is the result of cross-breeding between G. endressii, a robust, deciduous, carpeting ground cover from the Pyrenees, and G. versicolor, a taller, evergreen Italian variety, tolerant of relative drought. This unusual variety is in fact a pale form of G.x oxonianum f. thurstonianum. This hybrid forms ground cover about 45 to 50 cm (18 to 20in) high, spreading over 50 cm (20in), or even more in optimal conditions. It has an upright, dense and spreading growth habit. It regularly displays its delicate star-shaped flowers, often adorned with pink petaloid stamens, between May and August. Its leaves are plicate and deeply divided, with visible veins, embossed, lobed, and divided into five lobes. The foliage, with a grayish green color and bluish reflections, is evergreen.

This perennial geranium is a large, easy-to-grow ground cover plant that will find its place in perennial or low shrub borders, high edges, slopes, rockeries, and large pots on the terrace. It is perfect for hiding the base of old climbing roses, such as Alberic Barbier, Felicia, or Albertine, whose combined creamy white and salmon pink flowers emerge in crumpled garlands, rising from its dome sprinkled with stars.