Summer. Finally.

It finally feels as if summer has well and truly come to stay - we are having hot days, warm nights and a good measure of thunderstorms. And we still enjoy the surprises our garden supplies...

There are different amounts of all kinds of plants in the different beds, and most of them have just finished blooming or are about to start. There's some sort of reed-like or grass-like plant that blooms with a slightly purplish blue - but the blossoms open only when it rains or when a lot of dew is still around. There's a foxglove in white, a rose that is still preparing for its heyday, and a few other plants that are about to flower soon. We have an elderberry bush, and the strawberry plants also seem to do nicely and are hard at work making strawberries. In addition to these "proper" plants, we also have a lot of stuff in the garden beds that would usually be classified as "weeds" - but since they are nice, small, flowering plants that cover the ground and look okay, they stay in until something else will take their place. And there are some really, really tough and sturdy plants - the chives that grow no matter what, the dwarf thyme in the lawn that is determined to take over the rest of the lawn too and enters into battle against the trefoil and the daisies, and last but not least some lemon balm that was left in a crack between two stones and is now readjusting to a more normal place to grow.

Sturdy plants and the "it's not a weed if we like its look" approach make for very relaxed gardening, by the way...