SPECIAL USES. Rock gardens in mild climate, baskets, miniature gardens, edging.
Pelargonium hortorum Geraniaceae Geranium
How minute is a miniature? How small is a dwarf? Here is one case where I really don’t care. However you classify them, these small-scale geraniums are bewitching. And actually, their stature depends largely on how you grow them.
Their leaves may be as small as your thumbnail, but they are shaped, edged, veined, zoned, and often variegated like their larger relatives. In most varieties the size of the flowers has been cut down proportionately, but sometimes a cluster is as large as the entire plant. With age the stems may become gnarled and twisted, almost bonsai-like.
As a sort of yardstick, if you are very much concerned about height, miniatures are from two to three inches. Anything above that is a semidwarf, usually up to six or seven inches. There are many varieties within these limits, and by the time you read this there will most likely be dozens more. For the moment, here are some varieties you can start on your window sill; they will stay small and meanwhile bloom their heads off.
‘Black Vesuvius’—Single, orange-scarlet.
‘Dopey’—Large rose-red with white center. Free-blooming. Semidwarf.
‘Elf’—Dark leaves, zoned red and black, yellow on edge, single.
‘Epsilon’—Large flowers light pink with dark-pink phlox eye, semidwarf.
‘Fairyland’—Dull-green leaves with cream on the edge, single, touched with rose-red.