Bearing in mind that the soil in Frittenden is a heavy clay, Sue adds both grit and compost when she plants out another area of geum. The idea is to grow two or three in each part of the garden and then to record how they fare in slightly different conditions depending on sunlight levels and their aspect. At present she has at least 115 different varieties in the garden and she knows them, their habits and their growing patterns intimately. Records are kept of flowering times and length of flowering on a yearly basis and whilst they vary, with a bit of dead heading, many of them come into flower in May and carry on for months. Some geum can be promiscuous, so hybrids are kept a close eye on. I particularly liked the large clump of Geum ‘Bachelfe’. Its yellow/white drooping flowers were almost over but the achenes (fruits) were particularly decorative. Sue says that it is so vigorous there is only room for one in the Collection and this one has to be kept under control. It makes for a great ground cover plant.

So geum are members of the Rosaceae family and to my mind have everything going for them. No wonder there are always great displays of them at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and they were certainly in evidence this year. It was good to see them in Jo Swift’s Our Green Planet and RHS Bee Garden, destined to go to a school after the Show. So geum are brilliant pollinator plants as well as being slug and snail resistant, with semi evergreen leaves and, in the main, a long flowering period. 

Geum chiloense are marvellous for the front of a border as they are ‘see through’ plants. They have long, narrow, branching and often hairy stems with clusters of bright flowers at the top of the stem in a huge variety of colours and can be both single and double. As G. chiloense comes true from seed, it’s an idea to leave some seed heads to mature and produce that seed. They can then be sown and overwintered in a cold frame or something similar.

However, as geum grow from rhizomes, another way of reproducing the plant would be to make basal cuttings in the autumn having lifted the plant. Sue once produced an astonishing twenty eight new plants from dividing the rhizomes of G. ‘Hilltop Beacon’ which is a particularly vigorous chiloense variety. How satisfying! This variety has soft tangerine flowers, complete with a frilled edge and pink undertones on the reverse. It grows well in light shady conditions and should flower from May through to August. And whilst geum last for years, it is a good idea to divide them regularly, either in the autumn or early spring. The plants in the National Collection will be divided in the autumn. You’ll know, hopefully, when the plant is ready to be divided as, rather like some grasses, the strongest growth appears to be around the edges with a bit of a bare centre left in the middle of the plant.