Early June in the Garden - part 1 of 2

When we first moved to Pine Tree Cottage, 14 years ago, we had 100 feet of grass, ivy and weeds, plus some hedges.  At last it's now getting to the point where I can say "that's right!".  Not "that's done", because you never are, but It's looking like I think it should.  Above is a Huechera, Limeade, I think.

This is a new-ish rock rose (commonly) or Helianthemum, sorry no name, which I put in only last year.  Slow to spread, but got more flowers than last year, so I am pleased.  It's a vibrant red - this pic doesn't capture the colour so well.

 When I said nothing in the garden.... that's not strictly true.  This peony appears every year in two places.  I get two flowers on one, and one only on the other.  But it's such a lovely deep red, and one of the old fashioned kind, I don't have the heart to move it out - anyway, I have plenty of room.  You can see in the background some lily of the valley.  Didn't know I had them, either, they took about 5 years to show themselves, and now they are rampant - those I do have to dig a few out every year now.  Oh and a few old faithful tulips come up every spring, although I have added many more.

And here, amongst lovely lime green euphorbias are two alliums - the only two that ever appear out of a dozen planted!  But no matter, every early summer they are suddenly there, so delicate and every year a surprise!

Below, a little patch of common oxalis, showing their faces to the sun.  I love the little yellow one with the red leaves too, and though some regard it as a weed I do not.

 Finally the last picture for Part 1 of this June tour is a Geum (sorry no name) which I put in this spring, and which formed a huge clump very quickly and gave me so many flowers I thought it would make itself sick!!  The leaves you see are not from that, but from a perennial sunflower which I was given last autumn.  It stayed in its pot through a very wet winter here and frankly, I thought I had lost it.  Anyway, I planted out the root and hoped for the best and here it is, growing like a mad thing.  It goes up to about 7 foot tall when in flower, so I am rather looking forward to that.  it is in a small area which will have yellow, orange and white flowers mostly, including the blossom on the Amelanchier which went in in March.

You may have noticed as you scrolled down that most of these plants have small flowers.  I love bigger stuff too, and my roses look as though we'll have a decent show this summer, but somehow I am softhearted when it comes to small flowers.... My Mum loved alpines, and if she had to look at the flower through a magnifying glass, that was so much the better!  That's a bit too small for me, but I do love the smaller flowers, and so do the bees.