Ingwersen’s Bigroot

Geranium
Cranesbill
We’re talking about hardy Geraniums, not the better-known, anything-but-subtle Pelargoniums. True Geraniums are sturdy yet refined, with 5-petaled flowers borne on dainty stems close to the palmately divided leaves. Their spectrum of colors, from cool to electric, is rivaled only by their ability to create soft mounds and flowing carpets of lush foliage in ordinary garden soil. We plant a succession of varieties to always have some in bloom from spring to fall. Our selections are easily grown: many will rebloom after flowering if lightly trimmed and most die back in winter.

During a 1929 hiking expedition to Mount Koprivnik, Yugoslavia, Walter Ingwersen, the renowned German plantsman and nursery owner who penned The Genus Geranium, fortuitously happened upon the lovely soft lavender-pink flowers of this particular G. macrorrhizum. Enormous thickset, brown winding rhizomes store up water that keeps the large pale green foliage fresh-looking even during periods of drought and heat, and earn the name ‘bigfoot’.
Described by a spicy scent and fiery fall color, fuzzy lobed leaves forge an attractive weed smothering ground cover, while profuse clusters of dainty blossoms with rounded petals and showy stamens linger above. A superb AGM winner, it is well-suited for the perennial border, outshining others in the species, as well as exhibiting more tolerance for tough, dry sites than most in the genus.
Blooms May – September.
Size: 12" high x 15" – 18" wide.
Hardy to zone 4.
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Other selections in this genus:
- Geranium ‘Ann Folkard’
- Geranium ‘Anne Thomson’
- Geranium ‘Blogold’
- Geranium ‘Brookside’
- Geranium x cantabrigiense ‘Biokovo’
- Geranium x cantabrigiense ‘Cambridge Blue’
- Geranium x cantabrigiense ‘Rosalina’
- Geranium x cantabrigiense ‘St. Ola’
- Geranium x cantabrigiense ‘Westray’
- Geranium clarkei ‘Kashmir White’
- Geranium ‘Coombland White’
- Geranium ‘Dilys’
- Geranium harveyi
- Geranium ‘Havana Blues’
- Geranium himalayense ‘Baby Blue’
- Geranium himalayense ‘Derrick Cook’
- Geranium himalayense ‘Irish Blue’
- Geranium ‘Johnson’s Blue’
- Geranium macrorrhizum ‘Album’
- Geranium macrorrhizum ‘Bevans Variety’
- Geranium macrorrhizum ‘Spessart’
- Geranium macrorrhizum ‘White Ness’
- Geranium maculatum ‘Espresso’
- Geranium maderense ‘Guernsey White’
- Geranium x magnificum
- Geranium x magnificum ‘Blue Blood’
- Geranium x magnificum ‘Rosemoor’
- Geranium ‘Melinda’
- Geranium x monacense ‘Claudine Dupont’
- Geranium monacense ‘Muldoon’
- Geranium ‘Nimbus’
- Geranium nodosum
- Geranium nodosum ‘Clos du Coudray’
- Geranium nodosum ‘Svelte Lilac’
- Geranium ‘Orion’
- Geranium x oxianianum ‘Tess’
- Geranium x oxonianum ‘Walter's Gift’
- Geranium ‘Patricia’
- Geranium phaeum ‘Album’
- Geranium phaeum ‘Alec’s Pink’
- Geranium phaeum ‘Langthorn’s Blue’
- Geranium phaeum ‘Lavender Pinwheel’
- Geranium phaeum ‘Lily Lovell’
- Geranium phaeum ‘Raven’
- Geranium phaeum ‘Samobor’
- Geranium phaeum ‘Springtime’
- Geranium phaeum ‘Walküre’
- Geranium ‘Phillipe Vapelle’
- Geranium platypetalum ‘Turco’
- Geranium pratense ‘Dark Reiter’
- Geranium pratense ‘Kaya’
- Geranium pratense ‘Laura’
- Geranium pratense ‘Plenum Violaceum’
- Geranium renardii
- Geranium renardii ‘Tcschelda’
- Geranium x riversleaianum ‘Mavis Simpson’
- Geranium ‘Rozanne’
- Geranium ‘Sabani Blue’
- Geranium sanguineum var. lancastriense
- Geranium sanguineum ‘Album’
- Geranium sanguineum ‘Apfelblute’
- Geranium ‘Sirak’
- Geranium ‘Sue Crug’
- Geranium sylvaticum ‘Birch Lilac’
- Geranium wallichianum ‘Buxtons Variety’
- Geranium wallichianum ‘Crystal Lake’
- Geranium wlassovianum ‘Lakwijk Star’