Those would be my guesses too.

Well I won't pull the Peony then, haha! The Saponaria officinalis leaves look similar but the flowers don't look the same. This plant's flowers had golf ball sized round bulbs of buds that opened to really tiny, almost spirea looking flowers that were not very impressive.

the second one looks like my centaurea montana

I just came to the same conclusion.

I'm getting a bleeding heart vibe from the first one.

Arlene, I don't think I've ever really noticed how close Lamprocapnos spectabilis looks to peony foliage in photos until you mentioned it... They look totally different in person, for some reason.

she called them tiny flowers.. seems an odd description for things in the extended cornflower family ...

ken

I am a almost convinced by the Lamprocapnos idea. Can you take a picture of more of the top plant?

Yes the entire plant. A pic of the flowers of the 2nd plant also if you have them. Veination of the foliage does not match Centaurea m. nor the description given of the flowers.

Oh no. No 2 doesn't look remotely like Centaurea Montana to my eye.

The first plant is definitely a bleeding heart now that you've pointed me in that direction. I saw a couple at our local nursery today and it is the same plant, same leaves.

Is it weird that it's coming directly out from under the boxwood shrub?

As for the second plant, I don't have pictures of the plant flowering, but hereare a couple different angles of the plant:

Any chance that the second one is Mertensia? I am looking at how the leaves attach and the forming flower clusters.

I'm feeling Caryophyllaceae for the second.

Probably the Boxwood and Bleeding heart were too closely planted in the beginning.

For #2, do you remember if the flowers look like these?

http://arnoldzwicky.s3.amazonaws.com/MacheFlowers.jpeg

Maybe it's Mache Corn Salad Valerianella locusta

I have seen different shapes and sizes in different cultivars of this plant.

Valerianellas are tiny little things. Unless I have completely the wrong sense of scale this is not Valerianella. Plus leaf shape, texture and veination all look different to me different.

Are you 100% certain that no. 2 had 'tiny' flowers? The buds don't look tiny and it is so reminiscent of something along the lines of Silene, Saponaria or Lychnis.

'Will the bleeding heart hurt the boxwood because it's too close?' Much more likely the other way around ;-)

So it's a Silene... Maybe latifolia... Just a guess.

Aha - so it was Caryophyllaceae as I suspected. White Campion, Silene latifolia. I've never seen such a robust specimen.