A week of extremely hot weather including several soaking rainstorms sent my garden into overdrive. Multiple varieties of lilies, my first hydrangea and black-eyed Susan blossoms and every variety of hostas sent up their blooms. This gallery represents a stroll through my garden today.
After seemingly endless rain we’ve had two gorgeous, sunny days and my garden is responding with enthusiasm.
Upon returning from my vacation earlier this week I was heartened to see the beginnings of my garden returning to life. Though today is a cold, dreary and rainy one I managed to capture the first flowers of 2019, here in my garden in Michigan.
Seriously, buds on the trees and a full-on snow storm. The winter that would not end.
With wishful thinking I put the pretty tulip garden flag out yesterday. Premature? Jinx?
I love Michigan and have lived here all my life. Within one to four hours in any direction, you can take an endless number of road trips and discover fun things to do. (Under the “Michigan” category, you can bring up earlier posts – and I hope you will.)
We’ve got countless lakes at every turn, gorgeous weather and amazing vineyards as well as sports, casinos, festivals, concerts, theaters, galleries, universities, zoos, great restaurants, parks and markets….you get it, right?
I’m sharing a couple of slideshows of road trips I’ve made over the last four weeks, from St Clair and Marysville to Traverse City, Lake Leelanau, Cedar and Suttons Bay. If you have a chance to visit Michigan, these are a few of my favorite places.
2. Traverse City, Cedar, Lake Leelanau & Suttons Bay
A year ago, I planted a single, tiny morning glory with one little blossom on the edge of my herb garden. After a few weeks they went crazy. Earlier this summer, I recall worrying that no morning glories had appeared in my garden in spite of millions of seeds that fell while I was dead-heading last fall.
Silly me.
When we returned to Michigan after two weeks in Tennessee, my herb garden had disappeared under a canopy of morning glories gone wild.
A gleam in his eye, Spence offered to find his machete and “help me”. I declined in favor of a kinder, gentler approach pruning until the herbs were liberated while surrounded by a wall of morning glories.
Aren’t they gorgeous? They appear to have tiny white lights in their centers, illuminating from within while their rich colors provide a fabulous display which delights me every morning.
With the first of our three day Fourth of July weekend, the weather here in Michigan couldn’t be any more perfect. In fact ever since Wednesday this week it has been gorgeous including cooler nights and even a pretty solid and much needed rainfall in the wee hours Friday.
Spence and I choose to stay home on holiday weekends as the majority of the state heads “up north”. The Great Lakes State, Michigan has much to offer the farther north you travel and it’s stunning. However, there’s also traffic, construction and people pulling boats, jetskis and various other toys. We’re retired and can travel anytime plus when everybody else leaves town, it’s quiet and laid back.
With a soft breeze, brilliant blue sky and fluffy white clouds drfting above us we’re enjoying the garden. I picked the first 5 raspberries earlier, eating them right off the bush, like a bite of warm raspberry pie. In a bit, Spence will fire up the grill and I’ll open a bottle of wine and we’ll be chillin’.
Indeed, it’s a perfectly beautiful Saturday.
Three colors of poppies appeared this morning, adding brilliant pops of red, peach and pale pink to the iris and spiderwort-filled flowerbed. There is something really special about the paper-thin petals and the deep black centers. I couldn’t resist going out at 6:30 a.m. and getting a few photos.
