The colours of June: they’re often at their most intense at the smallest scales. Today’s photos feature wild and cultivated beauties growing around the yard right now.

Yellow salsify goes by many aliases. Goat’s beard. Johnnie-go-to-bed-at-noon (for its flower’s habit of opening in the early morning sunshine, but folding back into a bud in the midday heat). Oysterplant (for the taste of its root). Foragers say the buds and the roots are a delicious wild edible, but ours are scarce and so we’re happy to leave them grow in the meadow.

Yellow Salsify II (click images for larger view)

In the flower garden the cultivated irises are currently providing the most vivid splash of colour.

blue as midnight

all that glitters

The daisy fleabane, below, does well in full sun on our sandy dune. Although its ability to repel fleas is disputed it apparently attracts many other insects, as it is visited by a wide variety of pollinators.

pink wind

A few days of bright sunshine are enough to dry the small mushrooms that popped up in our rock garden, fracturing some into distinctly floral patterns.

rock garden

Along a fenceline a wild raspberry has taken root and is spreading rapidly. Time will tell if it bears delicious fruit, or merely delights us with the colour and texture of its leaves.

raspberry hedge

Top photo: Yellow Salsify I – click here for larger view