Hardy Geraniums are terrific garden plants, for ground cover and for the front of all your beds. The flowers are only half the story, because they have handsome foliage too, but if it’s flowers you want from your garden plants, then you cannot be without the Rozanne Hardy Geranium. Widely recognized as incredibly floriferous, it blooms not just in spring and early summer along with most of the rest, but also all through summer and even into fall. They are glorious flowers too, a profusion spread across the whole plant, and 2-inch cups of wonderful violet-blue – and an almost perfect blue at that. It is hardy, reliable and easy to grow too, as easy as any other hardy geraniums. Rising almost 2 feet tall and covering an area of 3 feet, just one plant makes a statement. But of course, planted over a larger area it’s a very bold statement, and a wonderful display of one of the very best garden plants around.

Growing the Rozanne Hardy Geranium

Size and Appearance

The Rozanne Hardy Geranium is a perennial plant that grows back from a fleshy root each spring, producing a vigorous mat of leaves and stems 2 and even 3 feet across within just a few seasons. Allow for this size when planting. In spring it stays low, but quickly pushes up many stems to stand 1 or 2 feet tall when in bloom. The leaves are 3½ inches across, divided into 5 radiating lobes, each one serrated, creating a very attractive leaf. It is softly hairy on both sides, and mid-green marked in greenish-yellow, giving it a marbled look. The large blooms are carried on branching stems that rise above the leaves and spread upwards and outwards. Each bloom is an open bowl of 5 petals, 2 inches across, colored violet blue shading into a small white zone in the center. Some of the very first blooms can be tinged pink, but the full color quickly develops. The petals have a soft, silky look and feel, and they have red veins radiating across the surface – especially noticeable in the white zone. Flowers come in succession, starting in early summer and appearing more or less continuously into fall. This variety is widely recognized as the most abundant and continuous producer of blooms of all hardy geraniums, and it is often only a hard frost that stops it in its tracks. When flowers end they leave behind a long, narrow seed pod that gives this plant its alternative name of’ cranesbill’.

Using the Rozanne Hardy Geranium in Your Garden

Grow the Rozanne Hardy Geranium wherever you want brilliant and continuous blooms – everywhere, right? Plant it in the foreground of shrub beds, spilling onto paths and patios, or on slopes and in rock gardens. Grow it in formal beds or natural plantings – it simply looks great everywhere. From zone 6 onwards it can also be grown outdoors all year round in pots and planters – a great idea to replace all that planting of annual flowers.

Hardiness

The Rozanne Hardy Geranium is reliably hardy all the way from zone 4 into zone 8, with good resistance to both cold and heat.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

For the best results plant the Rozanne Hardy Geranium in full sun. In hot zones it could take some afternoon shade, but this is not a variety for planting in shady places, as some other hardy geraniums are. It grows well in most soils, as long as they are well-drained, but of course for the best continuous blooming richer, moist soil are best. Established plants will tolerate some drought, but may stop blooming during that time.

Maintenance and Pruning

The Rozanne Hardy Geranium isn’t troubled by deer or rabbits and it doesn’t have any significant pests or diseases either. Removing old stems back to the foliage once they have bloomed will encourage more, but even that isn’t essential. Cut it back completely in late fall, once the leaves yellow and fade, and flowering is over.

History and Origin of the Rozanne Hardy Geranium

There are over 400 species of Geranium, mostly found in Europe and central Asia, and many species have multiple garden varieties. The Rozanne Geranium was discovered in 1989 by the late Donald and Rozanne Waterer, growing in their garden in the small village of Kilve, Somerset, England. They had many hardy geraniums growing, but as experts they believed it was the result of a cross between Geranium wallichianum ‘Buxton’s Variety’, an early-flowering plant originally from the Himalaya, and Geranium himalayense ‘Plenum’, a late-blooming and long-flowering variety of a plant that is also from the Himalaya. They gave it the official name of ‘Gerwat’ (the first three letters of the words ‘geranium’ and ‘Waterer’) and then patented it (accidentally?) with the name Rozanne (PP# 12,175) in 2001. That patent expired in 2021. The name Rozanne is therefore not the official name, or protected, and has become just a common name for this plant.

Buying the Rozanne Hardy Geranium at the Tree Center

As you might expect, a plant that has been so highly praised has been heaped with rewards. These include the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit in 2006, based on a special trial of Geranium varieties; the Perennial Plant Association Perennial Plant of the Year in 2008; the Royal Horticultural Society’s Plant of the Decade for 1993-2002; and one of the top ten Plants of the Centenary (last 100 years) at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2013. With amazing recommendations like this, we can never keep this plant in stock, so order right away, as they will be gone before you can say “Rozanne Hardy Geranium”.