Brenda's Wit Walking: A Trip Through My Garden

I always seem to post when we're traveling, but I have to tell you that I love time at home too ... especially in the summer.

So welcome to my garden and the best flowers I've had in years.

Day lilies will never rate as my favorites, but they look charming this year. Some I've received from neighbors like Ellen and some have been in the yard since before we moved here 28 years ago.

It took me ages to get echinacea (coneflower) in my yard, but once it took, it thrived.

The purples look marvelous with the globe thistle. Both these plants originated from my friend Leah.

I've started yellow and white echinacea more times than I want to admit, but finally I have some which came back from last year.

Gallardia also thrives.

My sunflowers always cheer me and they always surprise me as they self seed from year to year so I never know where they will appear.

My flower seeds came from Floribunda as they usually do and that company's quality of seed is incomparable. Much seed is heirloom and much seed reseeds the next year, something that seldom happens with seed from the big companies.

Don't just look at my sweetpeas, come over and smell them.

The amaranthus (love-lies-bleeding) was much higher than I am and I was just starting to read about using the seed as a grain when our giant winds felled them.

The hollyhocks are colorful but bent from the wind.

The Hope for Humanity rose took a hit in the wind, but it's beautiful.

The bees like my yard; here is one dining on my cosmos.

My favorite flowers this year are my zinnias which come from Floribunda seed. The blossoms are huge and vibrant and I have bouquets of them all over the place.

Scabiosa (pincushion flower) is one of my little favorites and it's spread through many of my flower beds.

I have four varieties of poppies and the shirleys look cheerful.

There are lots more blooming and my vegetables are coming on fast and furious. No wonder I love my garden.

Now if you want another type of trip, let me once again suggest a trip through all the fiber art in Weyburn this summer. Every stop has pieces to marvel at. The last of the installations is now in. It's in the Gathering Place of the United Church and it's just as wonderful as the others in town.

Have any of you beat the heat by sewing in your cool sewing room?

I've just completed my fourth Harris Tweed book bag and it's my favorite one. I've sewed them out of men's blazers which I find at thrift stores from $4.99 to $9.99. Almost all of them look unworn - perhaps they are too hot for summers and for winters of central heating.

I've been making the bags 18" by 18" which seems the perfect size to bring home a huge stack of library books.