You know that comment about an old joke the old ones are the best?  Well, the same can be said of that old trustworthy plant, the Geranium.

I know they have been part of the British gardening scene for a very long time, with new and old varieties, but there are several good reasons for that.

They are easy to grow and are reliable, giving long periods of colourful displays over the summer, and will even do reasonably well in partial shade.  However, they really come into their own in hot, dry conditions.

Seen in containers, window boxes, hanging baskets, flower pouches and borders, be they formal or informal, the range of colours and ease of growth makes them one of the most popular summer bedding plants around

Tutti Frutti is a very drought-tolerant collection producing plants with bright orange ice, red ice and pink ice flowers making compact plants 30 cm high with a spread of 30cm. These plants look great in a window box or in containers and when bedded out as a solid mass in a border their colours will take your breath away.

Geranium Fire Queen is an intense red, flowering from June through until October. It looks stunning in borders or in containers of all sorts. It is large-flowering making it ideal for that splash of colour needed right through the summer.

Also, large-flowering is the Geranium Parade. In a traditional colour collection of red, rose, salmon, pink, white and orange these plants will flower reliably throughout the summer months. I have grown this collection in the past mixing it with Pennisetum Fireworks and the resulting contrasts of colour were widely admired.

 did really well for me last year, in what was a very dry summer, and I was so impressed that, even though I am tempted by the other varieties on offer, I think I am sticking with this for another year as the results were exceptional.

For those of you who may not have the facilities to grow on your own plants early in the season, they are still offering a wide range of varieties in our larger sizes of the 70s, 24s, 12s, and 6s.

For a reliable display use Geraniums in all sorts of positions where the sun will shine on them and bring warmth and colour into your garden throughout the summer months. Where height is needed in the garden why not make some pyramidal shapes in the border next year and grow Geranium up them. 

With a choice of orange, pink or salmon coloured flowers they mix well with other summer bedding plants or can be grown in containers to give increased height.