June Bloom Day

It's been an extraordinary June, and an all-around extraordinary spring in the Chicago area.  It's been the polar-opposite of spring 2012.  Last spring was hot and very, very dry.  This spring has been very cool, with record rainfall.  

The garden is lush, full, green, and a little bit holey thanks to an old-fashioned thunderstorm complete with hail and a flattened garden earlier this week.  The photos were taken that day, before the hail that left its mark in the garden and on our patio furniture.  The blooms are all still here though, even the bellflowers the bunnies usually mow down.  The ones blooming are guarded with little fences.

  Purple alliums are done, and white ones are just starting.  The bunnies never touch the alliums.

The mini-rose the Lawn Man gave me years ago still thrives, and just gets better every year.  The bunnies prune it for us every winter.

 'Rozanne' is a little slow getting started this year.

 'Marmalade' has been here a long time.  'Mocha' is a more recent addition.  I will admit to a minor heuchera addiction.

Geranium 'Biokovo'  is winding down.  That old potted pelargonium in the background has spent many winters in the basement.

'May Night' salvia

'Blue Hill' salvia.  Might be time to divide these.

'Happy Returns' daylily is staying warm within the foliage this June.

'Black Lace' sambucus is blooming.  Elderberry wine anyone?

Three 'Pure Joy' sedums, for three granddaughters.  Last year at Walters Gardens Media Day, I won one for the pure joy of our identical twins' birth.  This year the nice people at Walters Gardens sent me three more to trial.  The one from last year is for my grandson now, because he's the oldest.  The new ones are blooming already, and the one I received last year is so cute with it's mounded self and pretty foliage.  Sedums do fantastically well in our part-sun, normally very dry garden.  It's not dry this year, and the sedums are equally as happy with all the rain.

I love lamium.  It really lights up a shady spot.

These Alpine strawberries were grown from seeds from Renee's Garden a few years ago.  From sometime in April, all the way through frost these pretty, runnerless plants bloom, and I eat a handful of little berries almost every day.

Geranium sanguineum var. striatum is native in Great Britain, and thrives in our garden.

 

Can't remember now which nepeta this is.  It's shorter than Walker's Low. 

'Husker Red' penstemon in a newer bed way in the back corner.  All the little fences thwart the bunnies.  They work, and we don't see them from a distance.

This gorgeous paniculata hydrangea came home with me from Walters Garden last summer.  It's even bigger and better this year.  Can't wait to see 'Quick Fire' bloom any day now.  It has a little fence too.  It's the only way hydrangeas survive around here.  I've lost a few hydrangeas to bunnies.

Winterberry hollies will be blooming any minute.  This one is the male.  I took this photo yesterday - you can see some minor hail damage on the foliage.  It's mostly unscathed though, since it's in a protected spot.

Dragon Wing begonias . . . love . . .even with a few holes in the foliage now.

We're doing less pots around here this year, and zero impatiens.  But the Lawn Man was looking back at old garden photos and found one of New Guinea impatiens and bacopa in a hanging basket.  He wanted to do that again.  I substituted Scaevola for the bacopa.  I think it  holds up better all season long.  He doesn't remember what that hanging basket looked like in August, but I do.  Next year I might do this again with orange New Guineas and blue Scaevola.  

It's been a very unusual spring in Chicagoland.  It's so, so green.  It's beautiful relief after last year's drought.  We've had more than enough rain so far.  We could do without the hail and severe weather.  I hope it will be a good year for farmers and gardeners. We all could use a break.

To see more Bloom Day posts, please visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens.