This is a single plant, the most ordinary of pelargoniums imaginable, the leaves strongly zoned, and the flowers satisfactorily red (the colour seems distorted only because the photographs were taken when the light was fading).
It does have a particularly unusual feature, which is that it has been in the pot it is in now, for well over a year without receiving attention of any kind. That period of course includes the hardest winter experienced here for more than a hundred years, and on the east coast of Scotland, hard really meant brutal, with extended deep frosts and severe storms.
So this single plant really should not be here at all – it should have flowered its last in October and disappeared for good by December. These pelargoniums are so tender that they resent going below 2°C, never mind freezing, as a general rule.
Pelargoniums are so useful for cheering up the garden especially when other things have become a bit lacklustre. We have usually bought new plants in the spring for planting out, from some garden centre rather than propagating from cuttings, as the plants are so cheap, and buying them in the spring leaves the job of keeping them alive to someone else for the winter. But this time, I am intrigued by this particular plant, and wonder, if I can take a couple of dozen from cuttings, whether I can look forward to having hardy perennial pelargoniums for the foreseeable future. I am sure it’s worth a try, though I shall probably never know the answer for sure, as I would not have the heart not to keep them frost free at least.
