Great Garden Showdown
Rozanne is a sprawler, a lazy-day queen,
The longest-lived bloomer you ever have seen!
She lounges in borders, her purple eyes bright,
And hogs all the sunlight from morning till night.
But Rock Cranesbill scoffs from her cracks in the stone,
And rules her dry kingdom completely alone!
With leaves smelling sweet and magenta so loud,
She doesn’t need soil to stand tall and look proud.
One is a lounger, one lives on the edge,
A diva in dirt and a punk on the ledge!
Cranesbill Geraniums are an herbaceous, hardy perennial.
Fun Fact: Cranesbills are known as the “Explosive Seed Launchers” — their mature blossoms become seed pods shaped like a Crane’s long beak (hence their name, of course). As the seed pod gets drier and drier, its internal tension increases bit by bit. When the pressure reaches its breaking point, the “beak” forcefully splits wide open, becoming Mother Nature’s catapult — scattering the seeds far and wide.
The catapult mechanism is absolutely the coolest feature of Cranesbills, turning a pretty and peaceful garden border into a tiny, medieval battlefield. For the scientists amongst us, Botanists call this catapult action “ballochory” or “explosive dehiscence”.
There once was a cranesbill named Roz,
Who shot down the garden because,
With a spring and a snap,
Her pod-catapult trap
Launched seeds right past everyone’s paws!
’Til next time, y’all…
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