Wild Geranium

About Wild Geranium

Wild Geranium is a quintessential woodland wildflower that carpets the forest floor with soft lavender-pink blooms each spring. This hardy, rhizomatous perennial grows 1 to 2 feet tall and features attractive, deeply lobed, palmately divided leaves that provide excellent texture throughout the season. From April to June, it produces five-petaled flowers that are a high-value food source for early-season bees, including the specialized mining bee Andrena geranii. Native to a wide swath of eastern and central North America, it is a staple of deciduous forests and shaded meadows. A fascinating feature of this plant is its seed dispersal mechanism; as the "crane's bill" seed pods dry, they spring open, launching seeds away from the parent plant. Wild Geranium is remarkably adaptable, thriving in conditions ranging from full sun to deep shade and preferring medium to medium-dry, well-drained soils. It is an ideal choice for naturalizing under trees or adding reliable spring color to a shade garden.