Geranium ‘Bob’s Blunder’

Blooms Generously All Summer Long

A British cultivar with a mounding, lush habit, it thrives in hard clay soils.

We don’t know what Bob’s blunder was (and he’s not telling!), but we’re thankful for it. This is a ceaselessly flowering hardy Geranium, beginning with the first breath of summer heat and refusing to let up until chilly autumn temperatures arrive. Each bloom is about an inch wide, and by the hundred they make a breathtaking display on nicely mounded, billowy plants. If you’ve found hardy Geraniums a bit insipid in your heavy clay soil or hot summer weather, give ‘Bob’s Blunder’ a whirl — you’ll be amazed at the difference this new selection makes.

The flowers are pale lilac to pink, each starred with a white eye. They simply cover this plant, tucking themselves among the large, handsome foliage and occasionally covering it with their sheer numbers. This is NOT grandmother’s Geranium, but a blooming powerhouse that makes a fine companion to Roses and perennials of all types in the border. It’s even compact enough for a nice container.

Even if this plant didn’t bloom, you might be tempted to grow it for the foliage. The leaves are large, lobed, and an olive shade of green, heavily overlaid with flashes of pewter-gray and bronze. Again, while some Geraniums sort of straggle along the garden floor in our hot American climates, ‘Bob’s Blunder,’ though bred in Worcestershire, England, is ready for clay soil, heat, and humidity! It’s one of the few Geraniums we can actually describe as “bushy,” even in hot climates.

The Bob of this blunder is Bob Brown of Cotswold Garden Flowers Nursery, and we encourage him to keep making mistakes. ‘Bob’s Blunder’ reaches 12 inches high and about 20 inches wide in full sun in the north, afternoon or dappled shade farther south and west. Reconsider hardy Geraniums in your garden with this robust, floriferous selection! Zones 4-8.