My June Garden in the Shenandoah Valley

June is the Garden of Eden time here, while the plants are still fresh and new and the Japanese beetles haven't yet arrived. Dewy mornings filled with glowing flowers and bird song are a little piece of heaven. Our rich green valley reminds me of the Shire with the hobbits, especially in June. Loveliness surrounds us. Then as summer advances and the heat, usually drought, and bad bugs settle in gardening is less idyllic. Although, some summers are much kinder than others. This one will be glorious.

(Shirley poppies and larkspur)

Pollinators are all over the garden. After unusually heavy rain for days the sun has finally reappeared. Bees and butterflies love forget-me-nots. These are the Chinese variety below.

"The garden is a love song, a duet between a human being and Mother Nature." ~Jeff Cox

"It is utterly forbidden to be half-hearted about gardening. You have got to love your garden whether you like it or not." ~W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman, Garden Rubbish, 1936

The first coneflower in bloom. Echinacea.

"You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt." ~Author Unknown

"I have never had so many good ideas day after day as when I worked in the garden." ~John Erskine

The breadseed poppy is beginning to bloom. Papaver somniferum.

"In my garden I spend my days; in my library I spend my nights. My interests are divided between my geraniums and my books. With the flower I am in the present; with the book I am in the past." ~Alexander Smith, "Books and Gardens," Dreamthorp: A Book of Essays Written in the Country, 1863

"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need." ~Cicero

Beautiful rose red buckwheat blooming in the garden above, covered with pollinators. White coriander is flowering beside the barley.

"Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps;
Perennial pleasures plants, and wholesome harvest reaps."
~A. Bronson Alcott, "The Garden," Tablets, 1868

Children also inhabit my garden. These are three of my creative grandkids and this is some of what becomes of my Amazon boxes. Cardboard weapons and protective gear for wars against Orks and other great dangers. They even made a crossbow.

Imagination blooms in the garden.

I think on the latest book I'm writing while I'm weeding, and develop the plots. Sometimes, I just 'am' while I muse with the earth. The garden is a good place to 'be'. 

For more on me, visit my Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Beth-Trissel/e/B002BLLAJ6

Our July Garden in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia

We’ve been blessed with a milder summer here in the valley and enough rain to keep our all too frequent droughts at bay. Daughter Elise took her camera outside the other day and snapped a lot of great pics.

 

(Cosmos, poppies, zinnias)
I say, if your knees aren’t green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life. ~Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes

I’ve worn out so many pants in the garden. And shirts, gloves, boots…
Gardening requires lots of water — most of it in the form of perspiration. ~Lou Erickson
That is so true.

Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown


(Heirloom poppies from Monticello and larkspur)

There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling. ~Mirabel Osler
Or talking to herself. I do that lot while I weed.

The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for him there. ~George Bernard Shaw, The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, 1932

Amen.

  (Tuberous begonia)

In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful. ~Abram L. Urban
Oh, yes.

Weather means more when you have a garden. There’s nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans. ~Marcelene Cox



Or whatever is growing. I love a soft soaking rain.

Gardens are a form of autobiography. ~Sydney Eddison, Horticulture magazine, August/September 1993

Gardening is about enjoying the smell of things growing in the soil, getting dirty without feeling guilty, and generally taking the time to soak up a little peace and serenity. ~Lindley Karstens, noproblemgarden.com

 
(Coreopsis Tinctoria)

How fair is a garden amid the trials and passions of existence. ~Benjamin Disraeli

You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt. ~Author Unknown

Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination. ~Mrs. C.W. Earle, Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden, 1897 (Thanks, Jessica)

No two gardens are the same. No two days are the same in one garden. ~Hugh Johnson

 

***Shirley poppies, larkspur, coreopsis, cosmos, forget-me-nots, and a lot of other herbs and heirloom flowers.

A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself. ~May Sarton
I think that if ever a mortal heard the voice of God it would be in a garden at the cool of the day. ~F. Frankfort Moore, A Garden of Peace

I fully agree.

 
(Chinese Forget-Me-Nots)