Photographs of this planting through the 2026 season, oldest first.
The photographs
Week of 1 JuneA geranium on 4 June shot down the length of its own leggy stem, so the magenta head sits smallest and farthest off — three flowers open above a nodding cluster of buds, their two upper petals swept back, the leaves stepping down toward the camera.Week of 1 JuneA geranium on 5 June carrying every leaf in the top half of one bare stem, its single tight magenta umbel opening above them — the two upper petals flared pale white at the base and feathered darker, a faint olive band across some blades.Week of 15 JuneA geranium on 15 June, not a bud open on it, each rounded scalloped leaf held out almost flat and crossed midway by a darker bronze-red horseshoe band, droplets still sitting on the upper ones in hard midday sun that cuts the grass shadows crisp.Week of 22 JuneZonal geraniums on 23 June, every round scalloped leaf carrying a broad soft-edged bronze band inside a thin red rim, finely hairy and matt rather than glossy, set out across a mown lawn half taken over by white clover in flat gray overcast.Week of 22 JuneA geranium cut back hard on 23 June, four fat jointed stems sliced off flat to pale open faces with only five leaves left on long pink-red petioles, and two thread-fine seedlings already up in the compost beneath, in flat gray light.Week of 20 JulyA geranium on 20 July with not one flower or bud on it, about fifteen kidney-shaped leaves ruffled and finely toothed at every margin, each edge picked out white by the short hairs standing off it in low warm side light.Week of 3 AugustA geranium on 4 August held entirely in bud, four umbels standing clear of the foliage with a magenta petal tip just breaking out of the bottom of each hairy calyx and not one flower open yet, the whole velvety plant beaded after rain.Week of 3 AugustA geranium on 4 August with one flower open above fifteen buds, two narrow upper petals veined dark magenta out of white bases and three plain broader ones below, its leaves gray-white not from any dusting but from their own standing hair, wet through.Week of 10 AugustA geranium on 10 August, two magenta umbels held up on ridged hairy stalks with nothing but mown grass behind them, and slung below the nearer head a cluster of nine buds, each a pointed oval whose green sepals are split by a magenta stripe.Week of 28 SeptemberGeranium on 28 September, four or five magenta umbels on long bare peduncles carrying browned spent florets among the fresh ones, two more dried to tan starbursts of slender beaked fruit. The light is flat and dim indoors, no shadows.
