What's blooming today?

Early July is my favorite time in the garden~ everything is still fresh, full of fabulous color and simply gorgeous! Enjoy!

*******

~ sweet honeysuckle blooms by Esmerelda's house (she's our garden fairy!)

~pretty pale pink dahlias in the porch window boxes

~ deep pink Asiatic lilies that are at least 15 years old- I transplanted them this spring and thought they may need a year to recover, but, here they are!

~ wild orange daylilies are throughout my garden

~ the snow-on-the-mountain is past blooming, but I love the seed head left behind!

~ old fashioned pale yellow single hollyhocks, the perfect flower for a cottage garden

~ Brown-eyed Susans sew themselves everywhere!

My Garden Journals

With our early spring and all the recent lovely weather, I've been spending more time in my garden. Everything seems to be budding and blooming earlier than most years and I've found myself going back to some of my old garden journals, checking dates and blooming times from past seasons. I have fallen in love with these old journals again, the story of my garden, summers at the lake and the unfolding of each season...

For many years I searched for the perfect garden journal~ and I found may lovely ones, full of pockets and pretty pictures and pages labelled with what to record...I was never able to 'fit' my garden or myself into those books. Finally (although it was so obvious, I'm not sure how I missed it!) I bought a blank book with a textured cover and beautiful paper on which I wanted to write and draw and plan and dream...

They also contain the stories of summers at the cottage~ reading, relaxing and family times...

...and hundreds of photographs and captions...

...dried garden flowers and notes from Esmerelda, our garden fairy...

...and yes, it turns out everything is early~ by about three weeks~ I hope it doesn't snow in August!