Beth Carpenter Books

Happy Solstice! AKA First Day of Summer Hanging Baskets It's officially summer, and while vacations are great, some of the best things about summer happen right here at home. As of today, we have nineteen hours and twenty-one minutes of daylight in Anchorage, and the other four and a half aren't really dark, so there's plenty of time for summer fun. Here are a few  of my favorite things about summer.  Summer Fruit Wildflowers Duckings, all in a row Reading on the Deck Sun Tea  And Roxy loves summer, too. Hope yours is just as joyful!

It's lilac time here in Anchorage. In yards all over the city, the bushes we ordinarily never notice are covered in floral plumes, diffusing their distinctive sweet scent that even smells purple. Lilacs spend fifty weeks a year as an ugly duckling, tall, scraggly, and awkward. It's a little like those old movies where the girl wears ugly glasses, baggy clothes, and pulls her hair back into a tight bun. But then one day Carey Grant removes her glasses, and says she has beautiful eyes. That's the budding phase of the lilac.  Then in the next scene, dressed for the ball, she's breathtakingly beautiful, sweeping the hero off his feet. And somewhere along the way, she gains confidence and grace and you know she'll never again be that ugly duckling. Now she's a graceful swan. And that's were the similarity ends. Lilacs live a long, long time, but they don't live happily ever after. Once they finish out their blooming cycle, they revert to the backgroun...

 It's summer again, and if it ever stops raining, I have work to do in my garden, and a mother's day gift of two new garden gnomes to introduce. I've been gardening on this lot for twenty-four years now, and over that time, the garden has changed and evolved. The former owner had established a perennial bed out front with globeflowers, campanella, cranesbill, and lilies. The lilies have started to fade away, but the others have self-seeded over the years, filling the bed, and I've added new flowers.  The one rhubarb plant in the backyard is now five huge clumps in different locations around the house. Ferns have multiplied to fill the shady spots. And there are more shady spots than ever, as the trees have grown and spread. Not long after we moved in, we build a fence, which created an awkward little pocket on the side of the house. I made that pocket my secret garden, a little private oasis filled with lacy foliage and pink and blue flowers, where I could escape an...