Views From a Garden

It’s hard to believe that just a few short months ago, the garden lay beneath a foot and more of snow. How quickly, how extravagantly, we have moved into the season of green. Here are a few photos of the early June garden.

Forget-me-nots! I wouldn’t be without them. While a lot of what passes for ‘blue’ in the garden, I would have to say, is really a shade of purple or lilac, forget-me-nots are true blue. They make a lovely ground cover while later perennials are just getting started. They do look a little messy when they go to seed, but the solution is easy! Just uproot the seeding plants and shake their bounty out around the garden, wherever you’d like a patch of blue next spring.

Speaking of blue, I’ve been enjoying the first blooms of this dainty little corydalis ‘Wildside Blue’. It was new to the garden last year and survived the winter nicely. The flowers are an unusual shade, very pretty, but even without flowers this graceful plant is beautiful.

Here’s the hosta dell. Hostas bring out my impatience in the spring. They are slow to start thrusting their spears of curled leaves skyward. But once they get going, they make an impressive display. These hostas are well-established mature plants, mostly Krossa Regal to the rear and Royal Standard.

The lupins are all volunteers. I’m not always happy with where they choose to seed themselves, but they do make a beautiful display. It’s hard to stay mad at them.

The elf Galen has returned from his stay in the garden shed to snooze the summer away. I’m quite enamoured with the hosta to the left of the photo, ‘Designer Genes’. The pale leaves really stand out in the shade, and if you look more closely, you can see that the leaf stems are red.

The little squirrel has returned to napping in his leafy hammock too. I placed him there, at the left of the photo, to remind me to avoid a low branch on which I have repeatedly cracked my head while surveying the garden and not paying attention.

I’ve added a few peonies to the garden in the last year, and am enjoying their first blooms. This is ‘Lesley Peck’, set against a background of Geranium phaeum ‘Samobor’.

These peonies are ‘Krinkled White’.

Here’s a section of the shady border receiving a bit of morning sun. The giant leaves belong to Astilboides tabularis, which I wrote about here. I moved the astilboides to a better location a year ago and he has taken to his new home with vigor.

Here are columbine peeking out around the edges of astilboidies leaves.

The brilliant red poppies are stunning.

This attractive salvia is ‘May Night’, or Salvia nemorosa ‘Mainacht’.

I always enjoy the striking contrast of the purple flowers against the lime foliage featured by the spiderwort ‘Sweet Kate’, or Tradescantia ‘Sweet Kate’.

Finally, here’s our lone pink lady’s-slipper (Cypripedium acaule). Railguy transplanted it from the woods, where it was in the middle of a trail and in danger of being stepped on. We didn’t hold out high hopes for its survival, but it has returned for a second year. You’ll find the story of the pink lady’s-slipper here.

I hope you enjoyed this little sampling of the early summer garden.