My Favorite Summer Vacation by A.M.Westerling

Well, this may be rather lame but my favorite summer vacation is to stay home and enjoy my garden. I live in Calgary and the summer months are beautiful here, why would I go anywhere else? It makes more sense to go somewhere warm when there’s snow on the ground and a brisk northerly wind! Luckily, my boys have left home and my husband and I no longer have to fit vacation time around their school schedule.

So this blog post is short and sweet and mostly pictures from my yard – enjoy! 

Last year we discovered Canna lilies and enjoyed the blooms so much that this year we put in a pot of only those. Same goes for the fern - I bought one last year for the first time and thought the foliage provided a nice contrast to all the flowers.

We spend a lot of time on our back patio:

I park on the front street and have to walk through the hosta garden to get to the back door. The secret to being a successful gardener is to find the plants that like the space you have. I tried one hosta a number of years ago and every year since keep adding more. I bought the little farmer guy because his overalls match the colour of our house! 

I love garden ornaments and have to restrain myself from buying too many. The bunny is one of my favorites and every year it goes in a different spot. The wrought iron duck is actually a tea light holder and I've jammed it in the pot to keep the squirrels at bay.

More from the back, that's our garden house where I keep my pots, etc., and also where I overwinter my geraniums.

We have more than one patio, we like to sit here later in the afternoon when the sun is shining into the back yard.

From that patio, you look back towards the garden house. The dahlias beneath the window are a few years old as I lift the tubers every fall.

This year I tried something new - I planted a small cedar for the pot beside the front door. I hope that by watering it, I can keep it over winter.

Somewhere in the petunias are three geraniums and three dusty millers. The petunias took over! 

These are Banff junipers. They're native to the area and they've pretty much grown all the way down the rock retaining walls. 

Lobelia are some of my favorite flowers. This is the flower box beneath my kitchen window.

Another one of my favorite ornaments - a gnome in a grass skirt! More lobelia and fibrous begonias, another flower which does well in our yard.

I could keep going on but I think you get the idea - I love summer in Calgary! 

And is there anything better than reading outside? Check out the Canadian Historical Brides Collection HERE.

Find Barkerville Beginnings HERE.

How Do I Love Thee Spring? Let Me Count The Ways by A.M.Westerling

 As you can gather from the title, I love spring. I love how the sun is warm yet the breeze is still crisp. I love the return of the songbirds and the rat a tat tat of the flickers pecking the chimneys to attract mates. I love the spring rains that wash away the last of winter. I love the fattening buds on the trees and shrubs and the springtime green of the new leaves when they unfurl. I even love the growl of the street sweepers cleaning the gravel off the streets! 

Nothing says spring like tulips. Nowadays you can buy tulips almost any month so that's like a little bit of spring spread throughout the year.

Spring is all about rebirth, regrowth and renewal and it’s my favorite season because I am a gardener. It means the long snowy sleep of winter is over and a new gardening season is upon us. I love seeing which perennials I planted the year before survived the winter and are poking up their little heads. I love having garden projects to tackle, like laying stones or reworking a perennial bed because it gets me outside in the fresh air, digging in the dirt, and using muscles I didn't even know I had. Until the next day! *wink* 

Every spring there’s something new I want to try, be it bleeding hearts in my backyard or hyacinths in my shade garden.

 

I love the promise of how these newly planted dahlia tubers will turn into this stunning display.

 And the promise that this:

Will turn into this.

But most of all, I love that spring is followed by summer. I live in the Great White North so it means a good stretch of decent weather! 

According to Alfred, Lord Tennyson, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. And maybe a good historical romance! Barkerville Beginnings is Book 4 of BWL Publishing's Canadian Historical Brides Collection and is available here at your favorite online store.

 

 Find the rest of the books in the collection here.