"Did and Done"

My dear Grandma Lynam had a saying for everything. One of those which I remember well was whenever she completed a task, whether it was doing dishes, dressing a chicken or canning tomatoes, she would say, "There, that's did and done".
My task the last two mornings has been weeding the flowers. I've gone out early and worked for an hour or so each morning. The idea being to get it done before it gets too hot. But when it's already almost 80 degrees at 6:30 a.m., well......
So this morning when I came in soaking wet from sweat (yes, I know, "horses sweat, men perspire and women glisten". Believe me, it was sweat.), I said, "I'm did and done". And I meant done in! I'm really looking forward to the cold front moving through this evening and having our daytime highs being only in the 90's!

This year it has been hard to even keep the potted plants watered and looking good. The heat is just too much for them. So I'm showing a picture of my pretties from three years ago. I didn't even pot this many plants this year. Interestingly, the pinks in the pot on the left are still doing well. They have lived through three winters in that same pot. I set it in the garage in the fall, bring it back out and water in the spring, and away they go.

Unfortunately, my Linum lewisii, which I love because I think of it as a play on my dad's name, Louis Lynam, did not survive after the 2010 season and I haven't been able to find a local nursery that sells it. I also love this perennial, 'Blue Flax' or 'Prairie Flax' for the way it is covered in tiny blue flowers each morning, which drop during the day, only to be covered the following morning with more tiny blue flowers.

Even the lilies, day lilies and heuchera need more rain to be as lovely as they were two years ago. When we moved here, I dug and brought Mom's one little coral bells plant. It must have liked it in its new home because it has spread so much that I have even shared plants and still have a lot, though the new 'peach melba' heuchera I bought did not thrive and survive.

The Rose of Sharon is the one flowering shrub the heat and drought has not seemed to affect. It is even taller and more full of flowers than it was last year. My neighbor told me that one day the former owner of our house came back just to take a picture of the beautiful bush she had planted.

I have managed to keep the hanging plant my son gave me for Mother's Day this year alive and looking good by giving it a half gallon of water each morning and evening. But when it is windy and hot as it is today, I take it down and set it in the shade out of that sirocco wind.

I came so close to losing my beautiful Hyssop when I divided it to share in the fall two years ago. This is what it looked like pre-divide. In the spring following, all I had was a bit of green on what otherwise looked like dead sticks. I kept watering it and it did grow. This year it looked much better. I keep it watered every day and while it has yet to cover the sundial statue as it once did, it looks good. It is one plant I love to work around - the aroma is heavenly to me.

The earth may 'laugh in flowers' as my plaque says, but right now, I think it would be happier to 'laugh in showers'. It would be lovely if that cold front brought some rain with it.