Whatever they are, mine preferred sun, and at the end of the summer I put them in the basement. They went dormant, and they came back to life the next spring. Sometimes, when we come back to CT later than early April, they came back to life and got tall and stringy, developed new leaves and started searching for light. This is hard in our dark, dank, dirt-floored 142 year old basement! But they lived on until last year when I finally realized there is no place with sun where I want them any more. I gave them to my daughter. I guess I have to buy the other kind, the ones that like shade. But our local nursery only carries geraniums, and the labels say they need sun.