Cranesbill
Geranium sp. · Garden flowers
Cranesbill and rose
Goodnestone, 1 June 2024
A blue cranesbill flowering up through the spent, browning petals of a pale rose behind it - two plants sharing a border and, for a moment, a photograph. It is a classic pairing for a reason: the geranium covers the bare legs of the rose and flowers on after the first flush is over, and the two were put together in exactly this way by Vita Sackville-West at Sissinghurst, an hour's drive from here.
White cranesbill
Goodnestone, 1 June 2024
Another hardy geranium, pale enough to read as white with a wash of pink at the base of each petal and purple veins carrying the colour outward. The veins are a landing strip - they run to the nectar, and a bee sees them far more strongly than we do. Cranesbills seed themselves around a border readily, which is likely why there is a drift of them here rather than one plant.
Cranesbill
Goodnestone, 1 June 2024
A hardy geranium, violet-blue with darker veins feathering out from the centre - one of the true cranesbills, rather than the bedding "geraniums" that are actually pelargoniums. There are enough garden hybrids in this colour that I wouldn't put a species to it. The name is the seed head: a long beak that splits and springs apart when ripe, flinging the seeds a yard or more - the same trick, on a smaller scale, that the pelargoniums use to drill their seeds into the ground.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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