June in the Garden

The oriental poppies are almost finished blooming. 

These lovely Welsh poppies are delicate looking.  They self seed around very nicely.  They are growing in the woodland and under the deck.  They are not as messy as the Oriental poppies.

This is the special red columbine growing in the woodland.  Most of the columbines are a dark blue.  Today I noticed one in the front garden that is purple with white around the edges of the petals.  I let these plants self seed all around the garden too.

This is the woodland path beside the garage.  I have put a lot of the clippings from the renovation of the Virginia creeper along this path.  I hope they will eventually break up and make the path higher and better drained.  The plants beside the path are looking lush, almost tropical.

Today was sunny but it seemed a bit cool.  I mowed the lawn, using the new ramp to access the back bit of grass.  I clipped the perennials, including the bishops weed, the perennial geraniums and the lemon balm at the front.  Yesterday I move Irises to the front, from the edge of the vegetable garden.  I clipped back the wisteria some, after the tree terrorists had been chopping at it.  This is the stump of the wisteria that continues to grow sprouts.  I was trying to train it to a standard but that is not likely to happen now.  It has run along the ground and has twined up the douglas fir tree where it has a wonderful show this year.  It is fragrant too.  I used my hedge trimmer to take off some of the cedar hedge along the path behind the garage.  I have the yellow and the dark blue tall bearded iris in the house, as they were flopping over and getting beat up along the path and the driveway.  We are suppose to get rain, so I have not set up my new sprinkler for tomorrow.  But I should get out and water by hand as the sprinklers do not really do a great job of getting into all the little corners or under shrubs and trees.
I bought a little solar light for the garden... just one to see if it worked.  It works!!  It has a rechargeable battery, and little solar panels.  The panel is only about 3" x 3".  Amazing.  Why don't we have these things sitting on our windows to charge up and use for indoor lighting.  I must get a photo of it.  and get some more, too. 
I cleaned up the humming bird feeder and I now have hummers coming to it.  I see a rufous humming bird and the bigger anna's humming birds feeding.  My deck plants are doing great.  I hope to see the hummers feeding at the plants.  There are far too many squawking sparrows around.  There are robins, towhees, house finches... I haven't seen the wrens lately, or the big heron. 
The daisies are in bloom and the foxgloves.  I am waiting to see if I have any peloric ones.  A special moss I bought a year ago has survived and is spreading a bit in the moss garden.  All is looking pretty good.

Gardening in Summer

This is the Welsh Poppy.  They seed themselves around and are a very lovely little plant in the shade.  I have some growing under the deck by the dry stream and a big clump of them beside the garage in the woodland area.

This is an icelandic poppy.  These poppies come in various colors.  I have not had much luck growing these in my garden, as yet.  I have a few California poppies seeding themselves in the garden now.  They are heavier, waxy flowers than this one, but in orange also.

This is my best Oriental poppy.  It is a hot pink color.  The others are bright red and orange.  These poppies are almost finished blooming now.  The foliage dies down and looks quite messy in the garden.  I need to clean them up.

These are two "petal art" photos I have made from the poppy.  I might use both of them in the Petal Art community on Megashot.

The perennial geraniums grow along the driveway in a about a 12 foot length of this long strip.  These plants are very tough and are perfect in this spot.  They are carefree and easy, evergreen with flowers in summer.  They come in a number of different varieties.  I have a magenta one that spreads and is in a few corners here and there in the garden.  I have some with lovely dark green leaves and blue flowers.  I have two minature ones that cover the spots where they grow in a well behaved spreding clumps. 

This is the view from the edge of the vegetable garden, shooting over the Irish heather and Iberis towards the woodland.  This view changes with the seasons.  This photo is from May 19th, as are all of the photos in the last three posts.

The last of the tulips and the first of the oriental poppies growing beside the back garage.