Hello August!

Hello Dear Friends and Happy August!  Perhaps in colder climates, by the first of August, summer is starting to wane?  Here in North Carolina, it is still quite hot.  My mom's air conditioner has been out for over two weeks, but thankfully, she has a separate air-conditioned room where she can sit during the day and a place to sleep at night.  I've heard about other folks who are not so lucky.  I hope you are comfortable wherever you are during this current heat wave. 

   
  

The Summer Porch

Hi everyone!  It's been a minute, hasn't it?  I can't believe I went almost two months without writing a post.  I have truly been getting some things accomplished around here, so I finally feel like I can take a little break.  In addition, we went to the beach again in the third week of May and spent some time there with our son.  The weather wasn't good, but we still had fun.      This summer, I've been planting flowers in much of my free time.  I'm slowly adding perennials in our natural area, and I'm starting to see such a difference in that section of our yard.  We have a mature maple tree there, and we planted two limelight hydrangeas about three years ago.  They bloomed nicely last summer, and they're full of blooms starting to open this year.  We also have azaleas and Lenten roses there.  This year I've planted several more things, and I'll tell you all about them in another post.  Right now, I'm going to share the flowers on our front porch and in front of our house.     

Mother Nature Always Wins

This, my friends, is why I HATE raccoons and squirrels --

A Productive Weekend

Hi everyone!  Can you believe it's the last day of May?!  I want to thank all of you who left such nice comments on my wedding anniversary blog post -- I appreciate you so much!!  You all are the best.  :)

I hope you had a nice Memorial Day weekend with family and loved ones.  

My Favorite Gardening Books

Happy Friday everyone!!  I've intended to post about gardening books for a few years now, but that plan ended up on the back burner while I wrote about other things.  Now that spring is here again, I'd like to share some of my favorite gardening books with you.