In a shaded border of our garden, beneath the rhododendrons and a red maple, the little Geranium "Tiny Monster" weaves through other plants in summer. It is one of my favourite Geraniums together with G. magnificum and G. himalayense. It goes very well with the dark Heuchera "Purple Palace" in this mauve area. The white flowers below belong to Gillenia trifoliata (in front of Aruncus dioicus).
Clematis "Perle D'Azur" grows through the red Cotinus coggygria and shows its flowers now. It is much paler than expected, so I am not sure, whether the label was correct, when we bought it. It may have a different name. It is certainly not as blue as the famous one in Sissinghurst Castle Gardens above Lutyens bench, but nevertheless goes nicely with the purple leaves of the smoke bush.
These pink peonies grow in dark dry shade under the large blue cedar tree in thick ivy ground cover, a very unusual place for a peony and not at all the requirements, that catalogues state for them. They may have been planted there together with the cedar tree 100 years ago - the house was built in 1912, the cedar possibly planted not long after. Today the tree towers over the house and has a height of more than 20 m.
We found the peonies here, when we moved into the house in 2003 and they have been showing year after year albeit with one or two flowers only. We could not move them; their roots are firmly lodged beneath and between the cedar's roots. Paul started feeding them; now they produce more flowers, that still need to be staked (or cut for indoors decoration!), otherwise they flop over, but they have found a perfect spot to elegantly contrast the blue-grey needles of their neighbour and protecting roof, and to brighten up that dry dark green area. It reminds us, that peonies can survive and grow in very dry areas, although they need more sun and a richer soil to produce more flowers.
This is a yellow-green corner with Phlomis russeliana and Lysimachia punctata in front of a yew hedge interspersed with the odd Carex pendula, which grows everywhere like weed, and some self-sown hellebores.
Green and white is this combination of hosta and wild strawberries. The latter show their pretty faces in many places in our garden.
More pictures from my namesake, the poppies:
Each year it is a surprise, how many of this ruffled opium poppies will show up. In some years, only the pale wild form appears, and without our doing, the next year buds will open to this wildly ruffled version. We have no idea, how to influence this ... we have tried collecting seeds of the ruffled version only and discarded all capsules from plain flowers, but it never works... there is no knowing. Here it grows between Allium christophii.
This year the rare Himalayan blue poppy, Meconopsis betonicifolia, which likes cold, humid air in summer and grows well in Scotland, produced one flower in our garden - very proud! In recent years, all plants had been eaten by slugs and snails before they were able to produce any flowers. This year in early spring, we had planted it in a different area, next to Camellia Shiragiku, between ferns and Rodgersia. We will see, whether we can entice it to return next year. If the weather stays cool and wet for the next months, as it is at the moment, the poppy might stay and establish itself for a while, until the next hot summer causes its retreat.
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