Today is the first day of summer. I woke, taking my cuppa to the garden, to be greeted by the face of a sunflower, opened, and in full bloom... my gift from the garden to welcome this day. Oh, it’s not a large giant Mammouth sunflower but rather a seed that a bird dropped. Grow it did in glory, just where it was dropped. I love those kinds of unexpected plantings.

As I looked around the garden I thought it looked, well... terrible! Some days I feel that way about my garden and later, often within the same day, I love it and think it is beautiful...its the critical eye of every gardener.

Every year I promise to be more diligent with deadheading and this year I haven't been. I should be ashamed, but I'm not. I do what I can, when I can, and I couldn't be as diligent as I should have been. I will pay a price for that however, as I won't get as many things to give me a second blooming as would have if I deadheaded daily and with a sense of being diligent about the task. Daylilies especially need daily deadheading to keep on blooming longer. They like to be popped off the stems, making that little pop noise, before they just wither pitifully and hang there until they eventually fall. I actually love to pop off done daylilies of the day. Doing so makes me feel good to know that tomorrows’ blooming of them will be only prettier.

I decided not to look at the garden as a whole today, after wondering why I couldn’t have just a little more color here or there in an area. Instead I decided to take a close up view of what treasures I have there to appreciate. I took photos of everything in bloom today to welcome this first day of the summer season. Well that proved to be impossible, to take photos of EVERYTHING in bloom. The camera soon blinked battery to low to take picture before I was nearly finished my picture stroll of the gardens. Well darn. But, I took many and I share them with you.

Click Here to view Gertie’s Garden Blooms on the first day of summer

I suppose I often wish that everything in my garden would bloom at one time, wishful thinking? Then suddenly I come back to reality of how boring that would be. I am a true gardener, and I classify myself as that by having learned the patience of the garden. I don't buy perennials in full bloom, other then now and then, unless of course I am somewhere and I see something so beautiful I want to take it home. Come spring I plant small perennial plants and I wait, and I WAIT, sometimes for three years. Now that is learned patience...allowing for them to grow and come to be. I remind myself of these words often when planting a perennial...One year to sleep, one year to creep, and one year to leap. Yes, it takes three years for a perennial to come into its own.

I love the wait until something blooms. I like to watch it stretch its roots, stretch its arms, and begin to grow a little taller. When it gets buds I look at it every day as not to miss the grand opening. Perennials come and they go, it is their nature. I am convinced that when we see gardens in some magazines that have plants in bloom that normally don't bloom timely with others, yet all are present, that they were merely purchased in full bloom and plunked into the ground for the photo shoot. And I add, Thank goodness this is so, as it's a delight to leaf through a garden magazine always and see such beauty upon the pages. I too would be sure my garden was picture perfect if a magazine would honor it. What gardener wouldn’t? I don't dislike this, if anything I’m green with envy when I see some of these ever so lush gardens with everything in bloom at one time. I just find it to be abnormal, being a gardener and knowing that perennials have their own time frame of bloom. Of course it is different for all areas and some year round climates that maintain a stable environment constantly for most all months perhaps have better luck with everything in bloom at one time. Not here in our ever so hot and humid climate of Virginia.

This year the weather has been extremely hot early on in the season with temperatures in the high 90's for days on end during springtime. I think many plants have bloomed early being afraid they would sizzle before they got to open if they waited. Today it has returned to springtime, rather than the summer I have been feeling we have already been into, with today’s temperature only in the 70's. It is a pleasant day for sure. We have had excessive rains on occasion as well. Not the kind of spring rains that the garden welcomes, as well as the gardener. Not only bucketfuls fell from our skies but rather bathtubs full were being dumped from the heavens it seemed at times.

Heavy rains have taken many beauties quickly. My borage has rotted at its base. I will plant more seeds in hope to have the blue stars that I so love to see and use. My daisy patch, NO, it's an area not a patch, all seeded from one single ox-eyed daisy planted many years ago, was battered by a storm. The tall stems and wide flower heads hung over, not being able to handle the harsh pounding rains. There are many dead heads there to cut. A few foxgloves and two delphinium stalks just kinked and were gone by the next day. Sidellaca was so beautiful and also damaged badly in a heavy downpour. But ‘tis how the garden is, as unpredictable as is the weather Mother Nature brings her.

I enjoy every aspect of the garden, the waiting with patience, the beauty, the eaten leaves, the ladybug that is there to devour the bad bugs that has munched those leaves, the birds, the sunflower seed that was dropped and bloomed, and even the weeds I have to pick, so they can return by the next week, only to pick them once again. There’s always something going on in the garden, you just have to look to see it.

So today I welcome summer by picture taking of what is in bloom. And now I go to the garden to do some diligent deadheading. After, I will again wait and wait, patiently...I will be grateful for what ever second blooms I receive, as well as what yet will come into bloom. ‘Tis the Garden of Never Enough Thyme where Thyme is in bloom everywhere this month. Time is good to me also today, allowing me the pleasure to garden, with my hands, with my eyes to see what needs doing, and with my heart. Using my senses together will soothe this gardeners’ soul. I will nibble a leaf from a few herbs while there. I might plunk a strawberry, that I grow for the birds mainly, into my mouth, and I will smell the perfume of the white roses, the licorice smell of the fennel, and the anise scent of the hyssop. I will avoid the odor of Society garlic, but I won’t just pass it by as it has one of the loveliest of flowers. I will touch the herbs and flowers and the soil of my earth, remove the dead heads of blooms and I will see the beauty I am so blessed to have surround me.

Happy summer to every gardener reading this. May your garden bloom in good health, and may you have good health to enjoy it. Remember diligent deadheading keeps your garden blooming, and every garden needs a few weeds to look natural and not picture perfect. Ah yes the garden...Savor summer, for before long she will be on her way. She only comes for a few months, enjoy her while she's here, spending as much time as you can with her, because you'll miss her when she leaves again.

Deadhead diligently,

Garden Gertie

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