The Geranium Palette

A few guidelines to use when trying to decide on geranium color:

Dark, solid backgrounds, such as yew hedges, tend to show pale or white-flowered geraniums to advantage. Whitewashed walls, white-painted fences and even the silvery white foliage of certain plants set off dark-colored geraniums to best advantage.

Red or orange brick walls or paving demand a little more careful consideration, because they can look strident with scarlet or crimson geraniums.

Whether used formally or informally, groups of a single cultivar have greater impact, seen from a distance across a garden, than do groups of mixed colors. Up close, however, such as around a seating area or on a patio, subtle variations in color look great.

White geraniums also look good mixed with the color of other flowers: the oranges and yellows of nasturtiums and French and African marigolds, for example, or the icy cool combination of white ivy-leaved or zonal varieties with purple petunias, dark blue lobelias, and blue ageratum and silver-leaved ivy.

Container growing is where geraniums excel, and the options range from single pots of zonal geraniums, hung in wire rings or brackets fixed to house or garden walls, to window boxes, hanging baskets and large tubs or urns with geraniums as part of mixed planting.

Although the orange-brown of traditional terra cotta pots is relatively unsympathetic to many of the pinks and reds of geranium flowers, terra cotta is so much a part of the visual language of the garden scene that it doesn’t really matter.

White-painted Versailles tubs, bleached wooden beer barrel halves and stone and reproduction stone urns are traditional and also work well in terms of color. The recent influx of glazed Oriental garden pots, including lovely deep inky blue-blacks, stone-grays and water blue-greens, dramatically increase the options.