The Little Red Geranium ~

 The story of my red geraniums began in the early 90's.  (I can't seem to find the exact year.) On a drive through the neighboring community of Lake Stevens, I saw a small booth in front of a farm, with a sign offering flowers for sale.  (We'd moved to the Homestead just a couple years earlier.)  I've always loved shopping for plants & flowers.

March 1998 - "WA Misad Aswad"

The farm belonged to Bud & Jean Wronna.  Bud bred & raised beautiful Arabian horses.  He also sold his own brand of horse feed.  His black stallion Misad was the envy of everyone who'd seen him.  We enjoyed meeting Jean & I admired her gardens & green thumb.  Inside the small booth, two beautiful geraniums caught my eye.  One pink & one red.  Both had tiny tight blooms & the red one was the clearest red I'd ever seen. 

 

Jean explained that her sister had found them years before & liked them so well she wintered them over.  She had gifted Jean with cuttings, that had multiplied enough, for a few to be potted for sale.  One of them went home with me & soon the Wronna's became friends.  Our horses benefited from Bud's feeding program & we enjoyed some great camping trips to the beach.

September 1994~

The first photo I've found is the one above.  We'd just completed the greenhouse a year or so before.  (It acted as a temporary tack room too.)  The geranium is at the far-right bottom corner of the photo.

Over the years, I wintered over the plants from the previous season.  The greenhouse made it easy & by spring I'd have several new starts ready to go into pots.  They were easily my favorite & worth the effort to maintain.  I never considered it to be special, until a friend who had a greenhouse in the area saw it.  She was amazed at how pretty it was & looked to find the variety.  After many calls, she was totally unable to locate a grower or supplier.

By Spring of 2000, I had almost more plants than I knew what to do with!  Butch had brought home left-over landscaping rock from his project at Red Hook.  They were perfect for us to use along both sides of the creek, where it emerged from under the driveway.  The geraniums added a great touch of color.

Spring 2000, by the creek~

I also had them in pots along the privacy wall of our hot tub.  Over the years, I'd given both our daughters starts & one or two friends.  

August 2000

By the time we made our move to Iowa, the geraniums had to come too!  They made the trip as mature plants in the back of the Bronco, which was on top of the car hauler.  

Dec. 24, 2016

They spent the winter months on shelves in the south window of the craft room.  By Christmas Eve I even had blooms!  The first few years, I used them in larger pots of flowers & close to the house.  Later as I developed a flower bed along the woods, they thrived in the Iowa soil.  

As time went on & we set up the Cabin, I had plenty of room to increase the number of plants.  The back deck was the perfect place to harden them off, before moving them out into the yard.  Spring of 2022 all my starts had done so well, I had plenty of flowers for the yard!

6-6-2022

By last fall, I brought the best plants up to the house & potted them in 10" pots to winter over in the Cabin.

9-4-2022 Three of the six pots - ready for winter & still blooming!

I moved them inside just before the first hard freeze.  We'd bought a shelving unit to set in front of the sliding doors on the south side of the Cabin.  They'd have plenty of light through the winter.  

January was a very difficult month...  We lost Nika.  Shortly after, I walked into the Cabin one morning to find my geraniums frozen to death...  We'd had a succession of very cold nights.  It was as frigid inside, as outside... (I had inadvertently hit the outlet where the heat was plugged in a couple days before.)  My poor flowers were so freeze dried the leaves crumbled.  I cut off all the stems & left the pots inside, but there was no recovery.  

I didn't even say anything to the girls.  I hadn't asked either of them if they still had plants from the one's I'd given them years ago.  I couldn't imagine they did.  I looked everywhere on-line & called every nursery I could think of to see if any were available.  None were...

9-25-23 Shock & Awe!

In September, I was browsing Facebook & found where daughter Courtney had posted photos of the flowers on her back deck.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing!  It was a photo of my geranium!  I couldn't call her fast enough!  She was shocked to hear she was now the only person - anywhere - we know of - with this variety.  Her flowers had a banner year & she had not just one, but at least three plants!  

10-5-2023 Heading home!

The only remaining question, was how to get a plant to me?  As luck would have it, Butch received a dispatch going to WA.  Courtney, Mason & Cassidy drove up to North Bend to meet Papa.  The little red geranium was transferred into Butch's hands for the drive back to IA.

10-8-2023 Butch arrives home!

Butch made it home the day before our anniversary & even brought me a flower!  At the top of the stem was the little red bloom!  It was undoubtedly the most beautiful flower he has ever given me!  He said it was very stressful task - being sure the little plant arrived alive & healthy!

10-16-2023 The start of the next generation!

I can't say how very much I appreciate our daughter diligently keeping the start I gave her all those years ago - alive & thriving!  Thanks to her green thumb & kindness to her mother, the next generation of my geranium will again be growing at the Home Place.