Canadian Gardening: What's up in the garden?, 5 by June_Ontario

June_Ontario wrote:
The garden is very wet from all the rain that fell yesterday. My one and only double peony, the luscious 'Raspberry Sundae', is nose down in the dirt - so no pics of that! Plenty of other flowers are holding their heads up, however. Today's pics are:
1. Geranium 'Brookside'. Very hardy and reliable, and mound-shaped. Its parentage includes G. pratense and G. clarkei. It will self-seed, but the offspring are variable, with some more lilac than blue, and some with smaller flowers.
2. Potentilla 'Fireflame'. A bright orange-red, the flowers are small but very noticeable.
3. Kniphofia 'Fire Dance'. I was skeptical about its hardiness when I planted it in August 2011. I saw no flowers last year and assumed it had died. I was quite surprised a couple of days ago when these flowers appeared from what I had thought was a clump of chives.
4. & 5. Cephalaria gigantica, in all its 2m glory, and a close-up of its tiny flower. The nurseryman I bought it from warned me to dead-head it, as it can be an aggressive self-seeder. So far, no problem.