Now that June has arrived, spectacular flowers are unfolding - huge blooms, intense colours and a presence that can be fondly remembered long after they fade.
Oriental poppies are one of the plants that fill this niche. An eruption of their fiery scarlet blooms, often 20 centimetres wide, is visible blocks away.
Gentler whites and pale pinks are available as well as purple-reds like Patty's plum.
Oriental poppies are hardy survivors in any sunny, well-drained place. Their thick taproots guarantee drought-resistance, and they can live with little fertilizer. After flowering, they vanish into dormancy, leaving a bare patch. But when fall rains begin, fresh leaves sprout and remain all winter.
Herbaceous peonies also love sun and good drainage and are greedy feeders with an appetite for compost, bonemeal, mushroom manure or other well-rotted manure. Their flowers are at least 20 cm across, and some are very fragrant. One of the most fragrant herbaceous peonies is the heritage white, red-speckled Festiva maxima.
These peonies develop deep red foliage in fall then die down for the winter. Their clusters slowly expand while they survive and flower for many decades. It's safer not to mulch the roots. Thick mulch prevents flowering. They can be divided in fall, but flowers may be smaller for a couple of years after dividing.
Tree peonies like similar conditions to herbaceous peonies but are shrubs which retain their woody framework and grow quite large. They can handle part shade. Their flowers are huge, sometimes 60 cm across.
Usually tree peonies are grafted, and it's important to remove any stems emerging from the base and producing small, single peony flowers.
Rhododendrons also produce huge flower clusters and are easy to grow in our climate, not least because these woodland shrubs like a sun-shade mix and an airy, well-drained moisture-retaining soil. Bark mulch is a good aerator if you mix it into the planting hole.
The award-winning rhododendron Lem's cameo sometimes produces up to 20 pinkish yellow flowers in its clusters. Another interesting rhododendron is Rhododendron augustinii which has lavender blue flowers. All the dwarf Rhododendron yakushianums have pink or white flower clusters which are large in relation to their size. These fit nicely into small space.
When other flowers fade, some roses carry colour and fragrance until the fall. The David Austin series produces large, double fragrant blooms for long periods, longer if reliably deadheaded. One, the pink two-metre shrub Heritage is said to be almost thorn-less.
Some rugosa roses have very large blooms and repeat-flower. The white Blanc Double de Coubert is a repeat-flowerer. So is the heritage Hansa.' Rugosas are thorny and tend to sucker but are very fragrant. Most rugosas are superbly disease resistant.
Like other roses, they love rich feeding and water.
Landscape roses are also extremely disease-resistant.
