Erodium pelargoniflorum Sweetheart Seeds - Storksbill

Erodium pelargoniflorum 'Sweatheart', also known as Pelargonium-flowered Crane's Bill, is a perennial plant forming prostrate cushions adorned with fragrant foliage when crushed. Its delicate cup-shaped flowers display violet veins on a white background, from spring until the end of autumn. Thriving in dry soils and sunlight, it is an ideal plant for rockeries.

Native to Turkey, this pelargonium-flowered Erodium is a perennial cousin of geraniums, belonging to the same family of Geraniaceae. It is xerophytic (ecology of hot and dry climates), shrubby with a woody stump, forming slender segmented stems slightly sticky and hairy. It has a bushy, rounded, branched habit, giving the appearance of a cushion measuring 25 to 30cm (11.8in) in all directions, with relatively slow growth. Its evergreen foliage, aromatic when crushed, is bright green with a paler reverse. Its small leaves (3x4 cm) are hairy, heart-shaped, lobed, and toothed. The flowering is very spread out over time, from spring to autumn, slowing down when drought persists. At the end of a slender, slightly sticky, hairy peduncle, appear fine umbels of 5 to 8 small cup-shaped flowers with 5 rounded petals, white and striped with 3 violet lines. The base of the petals is pink, the two upper petals are speckled with deep pink, and the stamens are also pink. The fruit is a slightly hairy beaked rostrum enclosed in a calyx resembling a crane's bill, hence the vernacular name of the plant.

Plant Erodiums in rockeries, in dry, even poor and inhospitable soil, as it is an ideal plant for dry gardens. Little used in our gardens, erodiums are very popular in Great Britain, just like perennial geraniums. Ideal as ground cover, this perennial integrates well in borders, rockeries, at the base or in the crevices of walls, in mineral gardens or in flower pots. Its lifespan is not very long, but it self-seeds spontaneously in light soil. It can be associated with bloody cranesbill (Geranium sanguineum), sedums, thymes, creeping rosemary, hyssops, oreganos, and savory in dry rockeries, for example.