It's Saturday. Lots of leisure time. A hot, sunny day. Plenty of choice as options to take one's attention. At this time of year, aside from reading, going for long shaded walks in the forest with our two little companions, my mind turns to the garden. Hard not to. Living in the Ottawa Valley equals a relatively short growing year. Which is to say for six months out of a normal year there can be no garden.

So, confronted with the vibrancy of growing vegetation let loose from the confines of a deep-frost winter, it's hard not to be enthusiastic about the glories that renew themselves year after year. We plunge from a monochromatic white to a sere vista of leafless trees and shrubs and empty garden beds anchored at either end of winter, to the sight-dizzying spectacle of brilliant greens and colour pop-ups of dazzling hues.

Now, every time I pass the glass-fronted entry door to the house my eyes are drawn to the garden. Glimpses out the house windows present me with each new blooming miracle through the growing season; sensuous, exciting, architecturally graceful and colour-dense. I can hardly tear my eyes away. And I want to be out there, ambling about the garden beds and borders, discovering each new thing that has suddenly appeared, the maturation of the plants, the shapes and textures, the colours eclipsing all other images of natural beauty.

And little surprises, those too. Like the tiny wild geraniums that seem to arrive out of nowhere, those minuscule bright-faced little pinks peeping out from under other plants. Once, I found a little miracle, a blue-eyed grass in flower. Growing in a vulnerable, awkward place easily trod upon. So I gently moved it into one of the garden beds, with its wee iris-like blossom. And it never returned. Today, in the backyard, pulling out purslane and violets and clover from cracks in the brick walkway, I discovered a tiny tomato plant. What?!

The climbing roses are beginning their full June flush. Peonies are in glorious bloom, their multi-layered blossoms rivalling the beauty of the roses. Hostas too are beginning to send up their flower stalks and opening the blooms to decorate those gorgeous textured and coloured leaves of the plant that are so robust and gracefully beautiful they need no assist from flowers to draw my attention.

The irises are fading, but the lilies are set to open. The mountain bluet is almost finished its bloom, but the cranesbill geraniums are beginning theirs. The columbine  are almost ready to begin fading after their lovely bloom, but waiting in the wings are the ladies mantle. The succession is endless and enormously pleasing. Whatever labour it takes to plant a garden and nourish it has its endless rewards.

True, only one of the three treasured hibiscus shrubs has at this point begun to send up green shoots teasing me with the prospect of seeing those wonderful dinner-plate-sized blooms in late summer. And the two blue and one pink hydrangea though all have begun their green presence, will become lush with green foliage, and sparse with coloured floral offerings, but hope springs eternal....

Too hot today at 34C to do much of anything in the garden other than puttering about and daydream. So all I committed to was the watering of the many and varied garden pots and urns whose living residents appear content with their lot in life this summer. Their bright insouciance gives us never-ending pleasure as we glimpse their presence from the house interior, and devour their beauty as we stroll about our small urban lot when we exit the house.

Most of our garden is private, is not shared, our very own secret garden, far from the eyes of the passing public. Trees and shrubs shield parts of the garden from street view and we are privileged to have little hidden nooks, areas no one can be aware of, that invite us to linger, to seat ourselves, to relax, to view the treasures surrounding us.