Mary's house celebrated its 100th birthday yesterday: the memorial glade was inviting

With a lovely tea party. The garden cooperated thanks in no small part to the extraordinary amount of rain we have received over the past couple months. Hydrangeas seemed to respond particularly well with lush growth and huge abundant flowers. Really though, everything appreciated it.

That cycle of regular heavy rains seems to have ended now and we have had some hot weather though, as I write this mid-morning Sunday, its wonderfully cool. We had about 8" of rain last month and we're over 6" this month. That's more than double the average. Temperatures have been generally cool, though we have had the odd few days here and there with temps above 90F. That's worked well for plant growth. The hot days goose them into growth and the abundance of water and generally cool temperatures allow that growth to happen. The down side is that the weeds have gone crazy too, both in the numbers that germinate and the rate at which they grow. If there's an upside here, we may be cutting into the seed bank for many weeds. They're all germinating!