I ordered a few of these http://www.waysidegardens.com/gardening/PD/41823?cid=wem001183 little geranium dudes. Does anyone have any experience with them? I think they’re positively adorable. Can this plant be split into two plants after it establishes itself?
Yes.
In fact, all Geranium phaeum cultivars should be propagated by division because its seedlings are not guaranteed to come true. I don’t have any phaeums but I do have other geraniums. My garden is my cite. 
Thanks, Chez! I’ll probably give it three years before I take a knife to it.
Pretty!
I love “real” geraniums (as opposed to those pelargonium pretenders), and, like Chez, have 6 or 8 different varieties scattered around the garden. They’ll form nice big clumps – you can probably start chipping away at the edges of yours in less than three years.
Okay, tell me the difference between the real and the imposter geranium. I like gardening, but I don’t have any background on this stuff. I’m just a sucker for a pretty bloom!
The flower you buy at Home Depot or the grocery store to pot up and put around your patio is commonly called a geranium, but its botanical name is *Pelargonium *(and yes I do have to look that up every time). It’s an tender perennial usually grown as an annual – a very pretty plant, I have pots of them on my front steps every summer. They are “tender,” which means they won’t survive a hard freeze – but if you bring in the pots and put them in your south-facing guest room window, you can usually keep most of them alive over the winter, saving a good $10 in the spring.
What you’ve got is a true Geranium – that being its botanical name, as well as its common name. Fans usually call them “real geraniums” or “perennial geraniums” (even though pelargonium is also perennial, strictly speaking) – you can plant them directly in the garden and they’ll come back every year as far north as zone 4 or so. The catalogs also give “cranesbill” as a common name, though I’ve never actually heard that used IRL.
(Why are pelargoniums called geraniums? Dunno – there’s some similarity in the shape of the leaves, though the pelargonium’s leaves are much fleshier.)
Thanks, Twicks!
Can I put these pinwheels in a pot and expect them to come back?
Pot or ground, either way, they’re hardy suckers. (Make sure it’s a good pot, if you go that route – cheap plastic pots can’t stand up to being outdoors all winter.)
I’ve got one of those heavy clay pots about 10 inches across. I’ll try that one!