Vacation

Wiese Acres Lilac hedge

The Wiese Acres blog is going to be taking a little bit of a vacation from writing.  With gardening in full swing after nearly 9 inches of rain, weeds running rampant, a garden bridal shower to prepare for on Saturday and a wedding to complete preparations for before July 5, time has become a precious commodity.  I will resume writing twice weekly sometime shortly after July 5.  Between now and then, I may post brief updates as I can.

This has been a strange year and my flowers remain about three to four weeks behind their normal bloom schedule.  The lilacs are in full bloom yet, at nearly mid-June.  This is their most glorious year yet.  The colors were vibrant, the flowers, large, the leaves healthy, and the fragrance was heavenly.  I'll be sad to see the season end for them.

My daughter wanted to use peonies in some of the wedding flowers, since that was one of her grandmother's favorite flowers.  I told her last winter I didn't think that would work because the garden peonies would be done blooming and trying to order peonies in and have them stand up in the July heat would not likely be successful.  She resigned herself to using one or two high quality silk peony flowers in with a mixture of other live flowers for the memorial bouquet.  Last weekend, I was able to tell her with pretty good assurance that she would, in fact, have real peonies from the garden to use for her July 5 wedding.  Who would have thought?  Hmmm.  Now what will we do with those silk peonies we bought?

Well, I'll figure something out for the peonies after I'm done enjoying the beautiful days of summer.  I love this time of year when the days are long.  In fact, on a clear night when the moon is out and the stars are shining, it never really seems to get pitch dark here.  I could spend the entire night out in the quiet of the gardens, listening to the toads buzz and the frogs croak, an occasional owl hoot, and the leaves rustling in the breeze.  Until the mosquitoes drive me inside, that is.