Geranium “Ann Folkhard”
Oliver Folkard

In the early 1970’s we were living in Staffordshire in a house with a small front-and-back garden. In the front garden was a plant of G. procurrens, at the time not widely grown, while at the back was a G. psilostemon, then called G. armenum. Looking at the garden one day I wondered in an idle way what the product would be if those two were crossed with each other. So suiting the action to the thought, I fetched a paintbrush and dusted pollen from G. psilostemon to G. procurrens which in due course produced one seed on that flower head. This really was beginner’s luck. I saved the seed and at that point we moved to Lincolnshire where the seed was sown and germinated and produced a seedling. This grew on and when it flowered the following year it was obvious that this was a good plant. I wrote a note for the journal of the RHS and sent this with a photograph, those being published in the July 1974 issue (Vol XCIX Part 7). In the note I named the plant Geranium ‘Ann Folkard’ – after my wife.

That brief note drew interest from a number of people, Alan Bloom among them, and so the moment came when the plant had to be propagated: taking my courage in one hand and a spade in the other, I dug up the only G. ‘Ann Folkard’ in existence and divided it. Happily it survived this rough treatment and so it was possible to begin sending plants to those who requested them. The rest, as they say, is history.

First published in the Hardy Geranium Group Newsletter, Autumn 2011
and subsequently in Cornucopia Issue 30.
© Copyright for this article: Oliver Folkard

This article was taken from a copy of Cornucopia that was published in 2012. You could be reading these articles as they are published to a national audience, by subscribing to Cornucopia.