Happy Summer Solstice!

Summer came to us in that certain Portland, Oregon style: drizzly, damp, cool- with a high of 60 degrees, & with hope of better weather to come. The longest day of the year had the very shortest bursts of sunlight interrupting the grey & gloom. Post Apocalyptic Bohemia had began to resemble Cold Comfort Farm.

Post Apocalyptic Bohemia, living up to its name in Spring 2010.

There are some gratifying corners of the garden. Cornus Kousa is native to Japan, Korea & China. This small white flowering dogwood was given to us a sapling, as gift from our dear friends & best men at our wedding- Ken & Eiric, in memory of our recently deceased 1st dog- Baby. Baby was a terrier mix, & as a puppy she was almost shamefully cute. She grew to be a real broad though. The Husband described her as the Joan Blondell of the canine world. She was a blond, possessed of full hips that she swung from side to side as she walked, & Baby had a snappy way with a one liner. Her death at 13 from Cushing's Disease, seemed to early to us & we were inconsolable. The boys gave us the tree as her memorial, & it was one of the few plants that we dug up in the pouring rain on our last day in Seattle & transferred to our new garden in Portland. In late spring/early summer the tree is heavy with breathtakingly beautiful blizzard of white  flowers. It produces showy, stunning scarlet leaves in the early autumn, with  blood red berries appearing in the fall & winter attracting songbirds. That is a lot of show from one small tree, but then Baby had come to resemble an aging Vegas showgirl in her later years, complete with a deep raspy voice & a fur coat.

Blossoms from Baby's dogwood. Gone for 12 years, I still grieve. I love this reminder of the old broad.

What a show off the Clemitis Montana is when it gives us a cloud of heavenly white flowers. I had always believed that the hummingbirds are attracted to red flowers exclusively, but I have seen our hummer enjoying the nectar from this Clemitis.

Clemitis Montana... what a show off.

The husband recently re-worked the fountain in the garden pass-through room, & surrounded it with part of my Hosta collection. The fountain head is Bacchus, found by me in the garbage of the display department of the grand old, & now gone department store- Fredericks & Nelson's in downtown Seattle, where I worked for most of the 1980s. He is artifice, plaster & chicken wire made to look like stone.

The water from Bacchus' mouth flows into a tall pot from China. The Husband rigged a pot of hosta over the bowl of the pot, that is held up by bamboo sticks running through the pot. Ingenious, yes?

I am so ready for summer after the endless damp, depressing, depressive, dingy, dismal, dispiriting, doleful, downcast, & drab spring. I look forward to the husband sunning naked on the hot tub deck with Junior by his side (I have great photos of this frequent occurrence. I know the Husband would be furious if I posted one, but I am so very tempted. You readers would like to view that, wouldn't you?).