A post-breakfast saunter around the gardens, front and back of the house, starts our summer day nicely. As long as it isn't steadily raining, our home exterior calls out its siren song to us to come and see how the gardens continue to prosper and bloom, anxious to play show-and-tell for us.

We're more than happy to oblige, including little Riley, content to amble after us as we peruse the day's offerings. The backyard is fully exposed to morning sun and we imagine we can discern the difference in maturity in the begonias we overwinter in the basement as they now reach their full bloom cycle in a myriad of colour, form and texture that teases our senses. 

The sweet-spicy fragrance of the trailing petunias with their generous array of blossoms, take our notice as does the pink blooms of the Cranesbill geraniums, in particular where they compete for notice with the purple clematis growing alongside them, in their peculiar shrub, not vine shape. And among them is the pushy chameleon plant with its white flowers. The bleeding hearts are just about finished their flowering at the very time that the Canterbury bells have taken to flower as have the delightful Carpathian bellflowers.

Our Stella d'Oro lilies are in full golden bloom, and the orange day lilies beginning theirs. Ladies Mantle is abloom with their nondescript sprays, and roses brighten the garden as few other flowering plants are able to. The Icelandic poppies' swift bloom is closing down, while the hostas are starting theirs. And now bergamot (Monarda) is beginning to bloom with their spectacular fragrance wafting on the air when touched gently, and tickseed too are opening their yellow flowerheads.

As we amble about, I pinch back spent blooms, pull up a few weeds here and there and we take in the full, generous beauty of a beloved garden.