Another in a long string of disproportionate-to-the-season rainy days. We keep breaking all previously-recorded records of rainfalls for these spring months. Yesterday, in a light rain, before it all came tumbling down again, I set about shaping coir inserts for two hanging baskets, filled them with garden soil, peat moss and sheep manure, and planted two wave petunias apiece in them; as they mature they'll fill out and send graceful sprays of fragrant bloom dangling from their perch.

Couldn't resist the beauty of canna lilies, as a gift to one another for our 56th wedding anniversary, coming up next week. Their corms will winter over nicely for planting again in the spring. The hosta that we planted in one of our larger planters four years earlier has overwintered beautifully year after year and this year filled out expeditiously once it was taken out from under its protective winter cover.

The entire garden appears to be doing well; I had to replace a shasta daisy and did lose a rose, a very old one, along with two clematis vines, both of which had started growing nicely, and then, strangely just shrivelled. It's unfortunate to lose dependable old companions that give us such pleasure during the summer months. the clematis vines will be replaced with newer cultivars that may bloom more frequently and perhaps be a little more hardy.