Here in New England USA we waited through a long wet, cool spring to get to summer. Now it’s brewing us like a summer tea, hot and steamy. All we need is a little ice to cool us off. Phew!

What is lovely about the hot summer is my flowers love it! At least the hardy ones love it. Here is a photo of my hibiscus. My son and family bought this plant for me one Mother’s Day several years ago. My husband keeps trimming it in the fall and brings it into the house where it stays dormant until we bring it out into the warm weather. It blossoms with multiple flowers coming out all at once. It’s gorgeous in a salmon color.

John planted some plum tomatoes in a topsy turvy planter which he hung from our back deck. Here it is with many plum tomatoes already. Can’t wait to try some. He’ll be making some sauce. Yum!

Two pots of petunias are thriving in this heat also.

Each year we put a new mint plant on the deck to grow and then transplant some of it inside to keep the pests away (mice) and insects in the fall and winter months. It does work! It smells so wonderful and looks beautiful!

Basil and parsley are growing wild above. We can’t use it fast enough. Basil is delicious in tomato sauce and in caprese salad.

Parsley is great with roasted potatoes, other recipes, and as a garnish for many dishes.

In our backyard is a retention pond. Here are photos of it with lush vegetation.

Here it is as the landscapers begin to cut it back. There is a fence around it but in the above photo you can’t even see the fence. We are being invaded by this bittersweet vine that clings to everything and chokes the life out of other plants. One of the main reasons the pond needs to be clipped back every year.

This is a view from our basement slider from under the deck. You can see the vines edging their way to our deck and house as they curl and sway with the breeze until they get a hold on something solid.

The clearing begins all around the pond first.

Here the workers are stuck in the muck with their tractor. They had to get a larger one to pull the smaller one out.

It took quite a while to get it out but here it is finally getting a grip on some dryer land.

The funny thing about this incident is my husband did warn the landscapers about this happening before with another company. But, alas, they did not believe him. Sigh!

Here is the aftermath of the mess and it is still like this a week later. They have not come back yet. We can only hope they will figure out what to do to make amends.

After washing off the tractor using our hose they got it working again in order to drive it out of our yard.

They left behind muddy tracks and clumps of grass all over. Sigh! Now we wait! We’ve been through this before! Phew! This pond is supposed to be cleared out every year or so but this year with all the rain it has grown immensely. It is gotten too far ahead of the landscaper to deal with, but it has to be done.

Hopefully soon I will have some photos of it completed. What a mess!

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Blessings & hugs!

Janice