The Hideous Ones..

Here is my submission for Gardening While Intoxicated - Your Least Favourite Plant: pelagonium or geraniums.. I used to plead with my mother everytime we attended a nursery to replace those hideous plants. My aversion to them really has no logic except for the fact that I can't stand them. When you mention geranium I always think of those potted white plastic hanging baskets left out to wither and die, murdered by most Canadian homeowners for their ease of care. It says easy to care for, but it doesn't look after itself. Many Canadians buy great numbers of these hideous white plastic hanging baskets and then leave them out to die, by mid-June these scorched martyrs look pathetic and beyond quenchable thirst. I believe that these sacrificial geranium plants are provided in nurseries across the land just for the sole purpose of sacrifice to the sun gods and warn many plants to not grow here. In defense of my mother, she never purchases or keeps them in these white geranium coffins, but instead always in a tasteful display with much colour and care. I know these can be beautiful flowers and have seen them in great arrangements. The Martha Washington variety never lasts on the nursery shelf for longer than 1 week, and most scented varieties are gone within 2 making the killing almost sport like. I will just not be participating in the geranium sacrifice this summer.
Photo from Martha Stewart Living