Lady Carmichael

When I read the article in The Sacramento Bee last Saturday a week ago about a local geranium enthusiast, Mr. Geranium, who created a geranium he named, Lady Carmichael, I knew that I had to go to the Geranium Show at the Carmichael Community Center to get her for my garden. He had presented it to Carmichael's Board of Supervisors and they are going to use her in Carmichael's centennial celebration this year.

When we arrived about an hour and a half after the show started at the community center I was so happy to see that there were still some Lady Carmichael geraniums left and so we carefully picked one out.

She is a white geranium with a blush of pink and lavender. This is what she will look like when she blooms:

Photo by Amanda Cruz/The Sacramento Bee

One of the society members told me that they had over 1,200 geraniums and they sold them all in less than an hour! So, I only came home with Lady Carmichael, but that is the one I specifically went to get so I was ecstatic. One of the members told John that there was a long line waiting for them to open and I believe it when I saw that they had only a few plants left for sale.

I am glad to see that so many people in our area love geraniums. I know that they have been a flower that has been out of favor with the garden experts because they are considered 'common', but I have always loved the Geraniums/Pelargoniums because they are such a beautiful, hardy flower and it is a comforting flower that makes me reminisce about home and childhood.

I took some pictures of some of the arrangements that members of the Geranium Society created.

Some of the members also brought some of their prized geraniums and pelargoniums that they have been growing for years.

The flowers on this one are so sweet.

This is a Pelargonium Cotylbdonis. The stems on it resemble bark. You can just see tiny leaflets emerging. The proud owner of this pelargonium was so excited because she said that it didn't have any leaflets on it earlier that morning and that it must really like the lighting in the room. I'd like to get one of these.