Time flies.

Has it really been 3 months since my last blog?  How can that be?

The biggest reason was the issue of my hip.  By mid-May I knew I had to have a hip replacement.  I was never without pain and had limited mobility.  An X-ray showed the horrendous damage done to my hip.  No time to waste.

So, June 22 I had it done by a wonderful surgeon, Dr. John Perry.  Like so many others, I afterward wondered why I waited so long!  It has been a remarkably fast recovery and for the first time in years, I am able to do most of the activities of my life without pain.  That includes working in the yard, planting and weeding.  I spent two and a half hours doing that this morning. 

What happened to my gardens?  The vegetable garden died sometime in May.  We had had a small crop of tomatoes in the Spring but the plants stopped flowering and finally died.  The peppers barely produced fruit and also died.  The zucchini flowered but never developed fruit.  We don't know what was at play here.  The weather could have been one factor.  We had a few weeks of up and down temperatures, high to low and back to high every day.  And finally, Mother Nature settled on hot, with no rain, and then hot, hot with lots of rain.  We were confused with the weather, so I'm sure the plants couldn't adjust.

Another failure is the Japanese red maple.  Within weeks of opening beautiful red leaves, they were curled, dried and dead.  I left the main stalk  along in case something was still alive below ground, but last week I pulled it--fairly easily I might add.  I won't say what I'm trying to grow in that spot now, just that it's something from the garden that re-roots easily.  If it survives and thrives, I will let you know.

But some other things have thrived.  The blue daze is not only flowering but also spreading throughout the back yard garden.  I have had to cull some branches  as they threaten to "bury" some other plants, like the moss.  Where the moss hasn't been buried,  it has thrived, multiplying in neat small balls.  Quite cute, actually.

The snow bushes are 4 feet high even after a pruning in June. 

Weeds are the one thing that keep growing, so I am finally back on a regimen to keep them at bay.  I surely long for cooler weather.  When it is sunny and hot, I can only manage about an hour in the yard.  Today I was lucky, with cloud cover and a reasonable temperature  that allowed me to keep going for more than 2 hours. 

Next chore?  Digging out the weeks from the vegetable corner.  That definitely will require more than an hour.

Until next time,

Stop to smell the roses.