bannersbyricki.com

Welcome to all visitors from Carol’s May Dreams Gardens site…as well as to all ye who enter here from parts unknown. It is a bit frustrating to note the few blossoms that put in a brief but glorious appearance between the days we have committed to posting (15th of each month). They shall remain unheralded, unless they rise to the level of meriting their own posts.

This Aquilegia ‘Swallowtail’ was an exclusive offering from High Country Gardens. Note the long spurs, which can reach 4″.

Allium karativiense ‘Ivory Queen’ is low-growing and long-lasting. It has been blooming for a month, and it’s furry balls are just beginning to show signs of exhaustion.

The alliums keep coming up with aliases. This one used to be called christophii, but now goes by albopilosum, and I can’t begin to decipher what’s up with A. bulgaricum aka Nectaroscordum siculum. It remains one of my favorites, even if I don’t know what to call it. The Alliums, with their pungent bulbs, foil whatever is tunneling through my beds, so I will continue to experiment with the many offerings, along with the killer (and I mean that literally) daffodils. My A, schubertii was drowned by late rains, but I will simply move it to one of the berms rather than give up on its Sputniky, space-agey presence.

This is the last blossom on the tree peony ‘Chinese Dragon’. I use a combination of cutting bouquets and elaborate staking to keep the masses of blossoms from breaking off branches. I am told that as the plant matures it will become sturdier and more compact.

The foxgloves that grow wild in the meadow and along roadsides have migrated to several cultivated areas, and welcome to them.

My current favorite of the bearded irises is this flesh-toned beauty, but my fickle affections will no doubt transfer to the brunette when she comes along.

Philadelphus arrived as a mere stick from one of those cut-rate catalogs, but see how it thrives…and this is definitely where scratch and sniff would come in handy.

I have more appealing photos of Phlomis russeliana, but this one shows the architecture of the plant, which I find to be its most appealing feature.

The flowers on Rodgersia aesculifolia are just coming on…merely an excuse to show you the fabulous leaves, which run 26″ or so across.

The earliest of the lavenders is the bright and witty Spanish.

Buttercups sprinkle themselves everywhere. What could be more cheerful?

And there you have it for June. Still blooming from before are hellebores (they seem to go on forever), euphorbias (some just coming on and a few ready to be cut back), weigelia, blue-eyed-grass, silene, strawberry and blue star creeper. New bloomers that didn’t rate photos are dogwood ‘China Girl’, California poppy, chives, roses, snapdragon, catmint, heuchera, Lecesteria formosa and Viburnum dentata ‘Blue Muffin’.

You may have noticed posts on the 15th of the past couple of months with photos of what is blooming at the time. The brainchild of Carol at May Dreams Gardens, it attracts garden bloggers from far and wide. They post their pictures and comments, then leave a link on Carol’s site. What fun it is to tap into these avid gardeners’ personalities and to see what is blooming in different parts of the world. I always thought Portland OR was the mecca for growing things, but after skimming Pam’s site, I was almost ready to decamp to Texas. Of course it could very well have simply to do with Pam’s exceptional photography.

First up, as seen through branches of the acacia in the foreground, is sweet little Saxifraga andrewsii in combination with Penstemon newberryi. They seem happy in the gravel bed surrounding the pond.

In the woodland, Erythronium has followed me from place to place ever since I first dug a few from my mom’s yard. She had great swathes of them that had sprung up naturally, but I am still waiting for my three to start a family.

The apple trees are less showy than the cherries or the pears, but if one looks closely, their blossoms are the prettiest of all.

I must plant more of this Dicentra spectabilis so there will be plenty to add to spring posies. The white one (Alba) that was nearby has disappeared.

The flowers on Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi are an unexpected bonus. I bought it strictly for its scalloped leaves. Like the echeverias, these guys refuse to stick to the script, and keep morphing into new forms. Oh, well…that’s half the fun.

It almost seems like cheating to include something like this Armeria that went straight from the nursery into a pot on the deck, but I’ll do it anyway.

One of the few shrubs that came with the house was a full grown lilac. It fills the air with its perfume, and turns lovely rusty shades of red in the fall.

I once brought Silene to life from seed gathered on a camping trip in Canada. I mourned its loss when I tried, unsuccessfully, to move it. Now I find it growing wild all over the place, Yippee!

It takes a lot of anything to make an impression when the property is large. Rhododendrons are just the ticket. We buy a few each year, so our collection is starting to take on a wee bit of “gravitas”. ‘Horizon Monarch’ is right at that stage when you can see all of its stages at once, and how the color develops from bud to full flower. We try to seek out varieties with interesting foliage, so that they can hold their own after the fabulous flowers fade.

R ‘Misty Moonlight’ is in full bloom under the cedar trees.

Going from macro to micro, these little Ipheon ‘Wisley Blue’ are scattered at the base of the cherry trees. With the help of some scilla, they mask the dying foliage of the early tete a tete daffodils, but I haven’t come up with anything to take over once these go. Any ideas?

We’ve come a long way since March, when it was easy to cover every bloomin’ thing without fear of boring the audience. Now, with the whole world bursting at the seams, a bit of editing seems appropriate. Here’s the list of flowers that failed to make it onto my A-list: many Euphorbias upstaged by wulfenii, Polygonum bistorta ‘Superbum’, Myosotis scorpioides, Mahonia ‘King’s Ransom’, Galium odoratum (see previous post ‘May Wine’), Epimedium grandiflorum ‘Lilafree’, Choisya ‘Sun Dance’, iris, Poncirus trifoliata, and various tulips and viburnums.