Special welcome to new PNW members! Please join us in sharing monthly flower photos. We now get to enjoy all our hard work getting winter cleaned up and digging in new plants. I like to just sit back and enjoy June before getting ready for the hot part of the summer. My area is typically a bit wet in June, but with alternating sunny days, so things tend to grow like wild during this month.

Peonies finally opened up


Ninebark is blooming


Poppies

Oh I love your poppies. I have alpine types blooming, the papery ones. The somnifeous (sp) are still small, maybe 2-3" tall. And I have a few orientals that persist in surviving no matter what I do. My Ninebark finally sprouted leaves and I cut away a bunch of deadwood on it. Is that what you are supposed to do? Like on a Redtwig Dogwood? Let the branches leaf out then cut down the dead branches to make way for new colorful ones?

Beautiful, Deb!
Mary, that's what I would do with the Ninebark...sounds right to me!

Thanks Stephanie

the poppies are wicked pretty! I've tried them here but they just don't settle in for me. What's your secret? I feel about June the same way -- it is my last chance to really enjoy gardening and to begin bracing myself for the intense heat to come. I find I am sort of welcoming it this year, as the gardening has needed more tending with all beds currently filled full with perennials. But, I know when the heat begins, and it's too hot to do anything other than run outside at 5 am and tip-toe around watering (not the wake the neighbors), I will begin to miss it all very much. Until end of September, that is, when there will be the mad dash to clean it all up for winter.

Here are some blooms from around the yard:

Fuchsia in my deep shade garden, dianthus and sea thrift in the back yard, and double daylilies hanging out together


My main "Blast Furnace Garden" (note the happy cactus...), some more fuchsia, and a full view of the deep shade garden - my only hope for July-Sept blooms since it stays about 20 degrees cooler


Would love to see what else is growing in people's gardens - I hope many others will have blooms to keep us sated during the dry spells this summer!

Love love love the evening fragrance of honeysuckle, and all three of mine are opening up.

Gold Flame (most colorful), native L. celiosa, and Belgica (most fragrant)

I need to take some pics. Battling weeds and losing. Off topic, but A really nasty thistle has invaded my yard all over the place this year. I pull it, the roots break, it comes right back. So spiky. The worst weed I've ever encountered…..thoughts? recs? I'm resorting to spraying it.

Kosk, I had a problem with Canadian thistle when we first moved here - our front field was absolutely overrun with it, we didn't have good enough fencing for livestock (who don't eat it anyway), and we didn't have a field mower at the time. Our neighbors kindly took turns mowing that field just to keep the infestation from moving into their fields. It took a couple years, but eventually we won that battle. I think the key to thistle eradication is to not let them go to seed and to continue to cut them back to the ground. Eventually the tap root will die out. The seed remains viable for a couple years, so be diligent.

What variety of thistle do you have?

I don't know type but it is pure evil. So spiky. It grows with runners so if you pull one, it just snaps at the root and comes right back. It has cropped up all over my yard. Country living *sigh*!

I have the same problem with snake plant. It has infested every square foot of my front and back yard, I keep pulling and snapping off on the theory that it will give up but if you look out my front (facing north) fence the space between street and my fence is a lush run of the stuff. I am resorting to laying down wet cardboard then fine wood chips as a mulch to at least cut down on the stuff where I can do that. As Deb said, someone said that if I could just keep it from getting light and such it would, if not die out, then at least become manageable. I DON'T want to 'manage it' I want ti DEAD!!

Son and grandson did a number of tasks for me from digging up and rerocking a path to moving numerous volunteers to my 'nursery' bed for later planting where I have a bed I am reconstructing. A shade bed so lots of astilbe and hosta volunteers. I think Feverfew will also do well there as it seems to spring up everywhere, sun or shade. Bought a Jurassaic Park and Sun and Substance hosta to quickly fill in the ends, bleeding heart against the house will grow and drape (despite cages) over half the width (area is about 20' long along the west side of the house in a slightly arc's shape. Fence further WEST [correction on direction] (about 6' further} blocks sun except for a few rather hot hours in the late afternoon.

Rosella and my fern leaf have opened their blooms along with a variety of smaller perennials. Siberian Iris can always be counted on, but can hardly wait for the lilies to start later this month, then dahlias starting in July.

Pics from this morning. Please see my potting shed project thread for additional pics.

Welcome to my rose garden!



I love the little boy's bunzzz on this statue. This rose garden is dedicated to mothers.


I've become much more fond of Nigella. I think those seed pods would look spectacular in bouquets.



A sea of white


Coreopsis, rose, mock orange

All beautiful. Is that blue flower Love-in-the-Mist? I planted seeds this year and have enough plants that survived that I hope to get seeds this fall.

Yes, Love in a Mist is Nigella. I always think about Nigella Lawson (the chef) when I look at these flowers, and I find it so interesting that her parents gave her that name. It self sows PROLIFICALLY, at least this variety. It's all over the place now. And that's okay with me. It doesn't make a statement from a distance at all (you can see it in my greenhouse photo on my thread 'new potting shed project'), but up close it is quite wonderful.

Another view of the Nigella with yarrow. (this patch of Nigella self sowed from the opposite side of the greenhouse somehow…..) Both have taken over this bed along with the poppies.

Gorgeous! I first read through the post, then opened the photos and gave myself a slide show.

I would love it if it would self sow here. But with all the weeds that come up I am not sure I could identify a seedling from a weed. Plus I preen some places just to cut down on the horrible weeds.

Love seeing all the flowers. The plants keep changing so fast this time of year. Love it as the perennials each come into their own.

One of the many treats is to eat fresh fruit as a reward for weeding. Am currently enjoying strawberries, but blue berries and raspberries will soon follow.

LOOKING GREAT, JEWELL!!! THANKS FOR SHARING!!!

Gorgeous spread of photos!

What is that lily in the second row, far right?

I have one somewhat like it.

I was told it was probably Lilium 'Black Out':
Lily (Lilium 'Black Out')

This year the very young blooms are a more uniform color: a darker red with no black speckles.

Absolutely gorgeous. I have Black Out, Dimension, and one other. About the only difference I can see is the black spots on one are more prominent. No spots on dimension, or I don't remember any.

So many pretty blooms. I love seeing all the color.