Heavenly early June blooms

The most beautiful and active month of the year -May is over but June is richer with larger blooms and nice sunny weather.  Kids vacation starts tomorrow and they are so so excited! I am too as I am tired of waking-up early.
Let me show you some new blooms from the week-end and the beginning of the week. The most reliable and the most popular perennials grown in a garden are blooming now like Irises:

My favorite is the white one:

Japanese Iris

Here is a collage of my entire iris collection:

Counter clock wise starting with the white: Japanese Iris, Siberian Iris, Yellow Flag Iris, 3 German Irises all received as gifts-don't know the varieties, Iris cristata 

Simple Peonies

Double red

Love the red double peony as it transforms in a alien flower at the end of the bloom.

Below is a collage of my individual peonies portraits.  Three varieties are missing as the buds are still closed. If you do not grow peonies, you should!  These are the easiest plants to grow! That is not what I said 14 years ago.  I planted my first purchased plant (without flowers or buds -big mistake) and it didn't flower for 4 years.  Then I pulled it out and threw it in the trash.  It might have been a wild variety or I might have planted it too deep.  Every other one that I tried after that was fine  and grew bigger and bigger every year including dormant roots which is how I started 4 of the 5 varieties shown below.

Lupines

Oriental poppies going and going - Papaver "Princess Victoria Louise"

Tradescantia

Widow's tears or Tradescantia

I left the Clematis known as the "Queen of the Climbers" for the end.  There are so many varieties out there. So far I grow four that bloom at different times of the year. I am sure I will continue to add more as I mastered the pruning of all 3 classes of clematis last year.

Clematis "Marie Louise Jensen" and me

Last year by mid June this clematis got a lot of attention when combined with the red rose climber "Blaze"  I posted that combination here and it is by far the most visited post on my blog.  The roses all suffered after the past frigid winter and died almost all the way to the ground.  I have been lucky that all started to grow again including the climber which has buds on one of the stems.  It will take a couple of years to recover to its former glory but I am sure that it will happen.
What is blooming in your garden right now?  If you have a blog, leave me a link to your last post and I will for sure check it out.
I shared this post with Floral Friday Fotos where beautiful photographs are shared by bloggers around the world.

Monday's Favorite Flower Combination #13

Primrose or Primula vulgaris with Golden Dead Nettle  or Lamium maculatum"Aureum"

Primula vulgaris, commonly called primrose, is a semi-evergreen, rosette-forming perennial that is native from southern Europe to western Asia. I recommend to grow it  in organically rich, consistently moist, well-drained soils in part shade. Plants often perform best with a spring-summer mulch that helps maintain soil moisture and keeps roots cool. Plants thrive in placements along streams or ponds and tolerate some wet soils. Plant foliage may depreciate in the heat of the summer. I propagate this primula quite a bit by division in spring after bloom.

Primula vulgaris (zone 4-8)

Lamium maculatum "Aureum" is a golden deadnettle cultivar that is noted for its chartreuse foliage and pink flowers. It is a mat-forming perennial ground cover that typically grows 8” high and spreads to 12-18” wide or more by sprawling stems which sometimes root in the ground at the nodes as they go. It grows vigorously in optimum conditions but is easy to control and is not considered to be too aggressive. Easily grown in average, medium moisture, well-drained soils in part shade to full shade. Prefers evenly moist, acidic loams with good drainage. Dislikes wet soils, particularly in winter. Dislikes high heat and humidity, and does best when soils are cool. Also dislikes compacted or poorly drained soils.

Lamium maculatum "Aureum" (zone 3-8) in late spring with two different varieties of sedum.

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Winter anti-depression treatment #3

Oreo the lovely female cat and Darwin Tulip "Apeldoorn" - April 2012

Purple in our garden

Royalty, wealth, magic and mystery are some of the meanings of color purple according to the various sites I visited! Purple combines the stability of blue and the energy of red.
There are many kinds of purple flowers in our garden. Some flowers are light  purple as mauve, lilac and lavender. Some are more blue or indigo and some are deep reddish purple almost burgundy. I will separate  the grape purple and show it with the burgundy posting.