Hi everyone, could anyone help me identify this plant? It is at the bottom of my garden (already there when i moved in) and it's spreading like wildfire. Ive looked online and can't find it, the closest ive come is mallow but that seems to have different green leaves. Thank you!

It looks like one of the true (hardy) geraniums but I don't know which one.

thanks so much for the response carlsurf73

hi, thanks for the welcome... Ive lived here for 4 years and never knew what this lovely plant was at the bottom of my garden. It attracts lots of bees in the summer and little hedgehogs hide in there during the autumn and winter. In the last 2 weeks I became the owner of a tortoise who has had a rocky start in her first 5 years of life. Im hoping to give her a wonderful home, and from what ive been reading these plants make excellent food for a hermanns tortoise! They just keep growing and growing no matter how hard I cut them back so im sure there will be plenty to share between the bees hedgehogs and tortoise!

Click on the left side of this page where it says Plant Database. When that opens, go to the second box down that says "Visit our custom databases". Then scroll down and click where it says Geraniums. It will open up to 45 pages of geraniums. They don't all have photos but you might recognize yours.

It is definitely a wild geranium, they are all over the US far as I know, and they make a lovely groundcover.

from me too Katfinlou! It would help narrow down an identity of that beautiful flower if we knew what area you live in. Are you in the U.S.A. ... North, South, West?? Or Europe, Australia, South America?

I'm really bad at comparing photos for identification but it reminds me of Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum)

http://www.wildflower.org/plan...

Im im the UK, North northumberland. Im amazed it just keeps going because it's always raining and we have really poor summer despite what the weather reports say...they seem to focus on london and forget about us up here. Theres an almost permanent blanket of thick grey cloud and yet this little flower keeps on coming back year after year!!

Geranium x oxonianum, I have several crosses (self sets) with G. versicolor and another pink Geranium I have.

https://www.google.co.uk/searc...

There's several named selections on the market. They vary a great deal in form.

Thanks to everyone for their prompt responses!! What a lovely friendly forum this is

Janet to the rescue!

Katfinlou: There is information about that Geranium here in our ATP database: Hardy Geranium (Geranium 'Oxonianum')

And, I hope it's okay that I submitted a proposal to move your lovely photos over to the database entry.

We have a great group of members here so I hope you will stick around and get to know us! Again, Welcome!

That's fine about the photos , do I have to do it? Im not very good with technical stuff. Im really pleased you liked the pics

Kay, no you don't have to do it, I've already submitted the proposal to move your photos to the database; they should show up there in a little while after one of the database administrators has had a chance to approve them.

Kat: Your photos are now showing up in the database, you can view them here: Hardy Geranium (Geranium 'Oxonianum')

That's lovely, thank you very much 😃👍

You are very welcome! If you have any plant photos that you'd like to add to the database, it's really easy. Just go to the plant database page and type in the name of the plant you are searching for, once you find the exact plant, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and you will see a section that says Adding Actions; click on "Upload a Photo", you will then get a message asking what the picture is of; entire plant, bloom, leaves etc. All pictures we upload to the database go into a queue for the moderators to approve and once approved you will get a message once they have been added.

plantladylin said:scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and you will see a section that says Adding Actions; click on "Upload a Photo",

Or you can also find that same Adding Actions on the left side in the blue section without scrolling too far.

LOL Sue, that sure makes it much easier ... and I don't know why I never noticed that on the sidebar before except that I'm not so observant sometimes.

Sometimes you just get in the habit of doing things a certain way! I used to scroll down all the time and one day when I was scrolling down through an entry full of photos, my eye spotted it on the left and ding ding! what?! why did I never see that before?!