Geum Lady Stratheden
Geum chiloense 'Lady Stratheden' — yellow avens
Warm buttery-yellow semi-double saucers floating on slender stems — the RHS AGM Geum that has been a cottage garden favourite since the 1920s. May to August flowering.
About this variety
Warm buttery-yellow semi-double saucers on slender wiry stems, held well clear of a neat mound of soft scalloped leaves so they appear to float. It has been in British gardens since the 1920s and holds an RHS Award of Garden Merit.
Yellow in a perennial is usually harsh and slightly acidic. This one is not. It is enamelled and faintly amber, and it is at its best backlit, when low sun comes through the petals and the whole plant lights up, so site it where the evening sun can get behind it. It is also that rare thing, a decorative perennial genuinely happy on heavy moist ground. Most cottage favourites want drainage; geum will take clay and keep going.
The flowering season is long, May through August, but only with consistent deadheading. Let it set seed and it stops by early July. The semi-evergreen foliage gets tatty by late winter, so shear it off in early spring before the new growth comes, and lift and divide the clumps every three or four years or the flowering thins.
Plant alongside
Geum Lady Stratheden pairs beautifully with these cottage garden classics
RHS Plants for Pollinators
This plant has been assessed by the Royal Horticultural Society and recommended as especially beneficial to bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Growing plants like this directly supports UK pollinator populations — something close to our hearts at Salle Moor Hall Farm, where we see the difference a cottage garden full of the right plants can make.
Learn more at RHS.org.uk →
RHS Award of Garden Merit
The RHS Award of Garden Merit is given to plants of outstanding excellence for ordinary garden use. To earn this award a plant must be of good constitution, available to the gardening public, and perform reliably across a range of UK growing conditions. It is one of the most trusted plant recommendations in British gardening and a genuine mark of quality.
Learn more at RHS.org.uk →