Summer Days, Summer Days!

These are the lovely hollyhocks that appear in our garden each year. But a recent windstorm knocked many of them over.

I just love the beauty of a summer's day. Yesterday I had the chance to visit another gardeners' garden and see the beauty that they have created at their home. The sun was shining, good friends were in attendance all to share in one couple's creation of their personal sanctuary.

We each garden for our own reasons. For some, vegetable gardening is the way they sustain their family during the summer and winter months. Or perhaps they just want to try and reduce their carbon footprint, know where their food comes from and enjoy straight from the vine fresh produce when it is at its absolute best.

Some garden for the flowers. They love the beauty of colourful blooms and they are entranced by the wildlife and biodiversity that those blooms attract. I'm a bit of both those gardeners. I have six raised beds in which I grow a variety of fresh vegetables. There is nothing better than fresh picked beans, lightly steamed and drizzled with a little butter or extra virgin olive oil. The rest of my garden is a mix of perennials, trees and shrubs with a few containers of annuals. I too delight in the wildlife that visits my garden from the groups of starlings, a few robins and mourning doves that like to frolic in the water of our several water features to those crazy squirrels that dig up my bulbs and my beans (had to replant them several times before they actually germinated). But oh those squirrels make me laugh as they chase each other up and down the trees and along the fence tops. And then there are the couple of little chipmunks who scurry about always with their cheeks full of peanuts courtesy of our neighbour next door.

No matter what kind of a gardener you are the important thing is to love what you are doing - getting exercise, fresh air and enjoying all that nature has to offer. And to take time, not just to work in your garden, but to sit down ever once in a while and truly enjoy all that you have created. Summer is fleeting, so enjoy it while it is here!