My yard in summer

It's the last week of July and the days are starting to shorten perceptibly. Meanwhile the temperatures are climbing into the triple digits. The peony stems look healthy, green and plump, but the foliage is a little scorched. Queen Anne's lace is blooming, white umbels like platters nodding at waist height: the geraniums are even taller, but drying out already. Last year I was still deadheading them in December.

After this week there'll be patches of brown and rust and yellow in all the bigleaf maples along I-5. It's a kind of false autumn, a response to heat damage rather than shortening days; an accurate enough harbinger to make me sad.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside