Five on Friday .... June Garden

Joining up with Amy of Love Made My Home for Five on Friday today. I didn't take any photos of my garden in May when the flowers started coming up, so missed the opportunity for some lovely shots of tulips and my lilacs in their prime. These photos were taken this morning ...

One ... Iris!

A new iris that I picked up last spring ...

The only variety of iris blooming this year from my mom's plants ...

Last August I transplanted all my mom's iris into my front gardens to give them better sun exposure and drainage. I was losing them to some kind of rot. This year the leaves are much larger and healthier looking, but none of them have bloomed. I hope they will continue to improve and next spring I will hopefully see them blooming again. For now I have only two varieties in bloom.

The spiky leaves above and below the wall are Mom's iris
(you can see my suffering lavender to the right as well!)

Two ... Columbine!

This is my favourite combination of columbine colours. I used to have a larger variety of this flower, but over the years it died out. Now I have only dwarf varieties of columbine, which aren't as nice because you can't see that pretty flower shape as well. 

Apparently, if you let columbine self seed, they will continue to come up for many years. If you dead head them, however, the plant will last only about three years. Mine usually self-seed, but I do cut off the ugly dried up stalks when the flowers are finished and shake the seeds out of the flower heads onto the ground for next year.

dwarf columbine

Three ... Flowering Shrubs!

My backyard is still filled with the scent of lilacs. I have one enormous purple lilac and then two smaller bushes from Mom. This white lilac is really growing up beautifully and it smells amazing. I planted this to replace a mock orange bush which always gets consumed by aphids. I think this summer will be the last year for the mock orange as the aphids are already on it. I'm just waiting for it to bloom one last time (the scent is heavenly!) and then that will be it :(  Oh well, this lilac will be a happy substitute.

the last blooms of my enormous lilac

Korean Lilac that I purchased a couple of years ago. A very sharp scent. I hope it grows taller before it grows any wider!

Korean Lilac

I can't remember the name of this pretty flowering shrub, but it blooms well although there is no scent.

The weigela has only just come into bloom this week. A delicate pink/white bloom.

Four ... Ferns!

My ferns come back bigger and fuller each year. I love the smell of ferns, and these beauties are beside my patio and around the little pond. The sun looks so nice on them in the morning. When it gets really hot and dry in the summertime I have to water them a bit and the tops of the fronds get a bit burnt.

This year I found some Japanese ferns at my gardening centre. I couldn't resist. I have wanted one of these for a long time. I may have bit off more than I can chew with this monster though. It's called "Godzilla" and is expected to grow up to 3 feet and 4 - 6 feet wide! We'll see what happens. I don't have a lot of shade for the ferns, so squeezed it in with my other ferns alongside the house. It looks great now that I've got it into the soil ... it was pretty sad looking when I brought it home.

Five ... Miscellaneous!

Bleeding Hearts

Bleeding Hearts

Bleeding Hearts

Solomon's Seal

Solomon's Seal

New "Blue Hawaii" hostas :)

Clematis just unfurling this morning

Potted Pansies

Have a great weekend ;)