Geranium ‘Jolly Bee’

The Biggest Blooms Ever.

Flowers change shades of blue as they mature.

Plant Patent #12,148.

Oh, Geranium lovers, wait until you grow Jolly Bee! Dozens upon dozens of big blue blooms will fill your garden all summer, each sweetly fragrant, each veined in maroon, dotted with a white eye, and changing shades as it matures! Best of all, these blooms are the LARGEST of any hardy Geranium I’ve ever seen, making Jolly Bee a standout extraordinaire in the sunny garden.

Now that I think about it, even a Geranium hater, if such a gardener exists, would have a hard time resisting Jolly Bee. The 1½-inch blooms are simply fascinating, not only in their play of three strong colors and their shifting tone, but also their sheer size! They seem to pop out from the handsome divided foliage, inviting bees and butterflies to dine and humans to admire.

Jolly Bee is also an exceptionally sun-loving Geranium, thriving in long hot summers all the way through zone 8, yet also very adaptable to cold snaps. It quickly grows into an airy plant 18 inches tall and about 18 to 24 inches wide, just asking to be used as a ground cover or star of the perennial border. The unique foliage complements so many other perennials that hardy Geraniums are always eagerly folded into existing landscapes — nestle Jolly Bee among your Oriental Poppy, Salvia, Alstroemeria, Coreopsis, Phlox — well, you get the idea. (It’d be easier to list the plants Jolly Bee SHOULDN’T be near)

Space Jolly Bee plants a foot to 18 inches apart in the garden (Geranium is not a perennial that loves crowding). Tolerant of either alkaline or acidic soil, it appreciates good enrichment before planting and plenty of water during the growth season and dry spells. hardy in zones 4-8.