Fireworks & Flowers

Honestly, where does the time go? Now, with most of the planting and garden work done, it's time to get ready to practice some summertime chill. These days that has to take place at night because it's so frigging hot and humid during the day.

It felt strange going to the city fireworks again, although the crowd was only half the usual size. Somehow, our little town always manages to put on a good show.

 

The Skeleton Crew likes to indulge in a few modest sparkly things. Our neighbors make their own very loud and extremely impressive fireworks which is very unfortunate for everyone else and their pets on the block. They started shooting them off before Memorial Day and, if last year is anything to go by, they will keep it up until well into 2022. February, if the Packers make the playoffs.  

Still, the city wins when it comes to blowing things up. Some fireworks are named after flowers, like peony, chrysanthemum and dahlia and I have no idea which one this is. All the photos that came up in my search looked the same but had different names, ha!

If everyone was vaccinated, we would really have something to celebrate!

Now that Summer is in full swing, all I can think about is how much I miss Spring, ha! It's the best time in my garden - not too hot, the bugs aren't overly pesky and all of my favorite plants and shrubs are flowering like crazy. It never lasts long enough but it always puts on a great show.

This year was different. After No Mow May there was a lot of encouragement by environmentalists to keep it up for another month. So in June, I gave the bees the benefit of the doubt and left things in the hands of Mother Nature, once again. What harm could it do, besides driving me crazy? 

Let's just say she got overly ambitious and in a few short days everything was two feet tall. Then all those weeds started to flower and kept on going for the rest of the month! It quickly crossed the line from cottage garden to overgrown abandonment.

Daisies, crab grass and all sort of tall weeds came up everywhere, luckily they were no match for the peonies. So when July finally arrived, it was clearly time for No Mow to go! Who knows if it made any difference to the bees but I HOPE THEY'RE  HAPPY!  

 

 Honestly, it wasn't that bad and it's not like there's a nice lawn underneath it all. It is clover, dandelions, Creeping Charlie, plantain and violets mixed in with some actual grass, nobody's ideal turf but it stays green in the heat and especially during a drought. In any case, a path got trampled down to the raised beds and HM ended up with a daisy or two between his toes. His feet are already pretty ugly but combined with a farmer-tan, they sort of looked like the sandworms from Beetlejuice.

Which, as it turned out, was the perfect movie for a summer evening. How would we find ways to entertain ourselves if we didn't have an overgrown garden for inspiration? If Hallmark is observing Christmas in July, we can celebrate Halloween all year long. Spookiness knows no season! 

Thanks for stopping by! How is your summer going?