Gardens, and gardeners, are in their glory in the summer.  Not only are there more flowers, with perennials aplenty blooming simultaneously to create striking contrasts and gentle compliments, there are less tasks than springtime’s clearing and planting and autumn’s cutting and raking. Though we still weed the garden, mow the lawn, and tackle an occasional landscaping project, in the summer, we have time to stop and, literally, smell the roses. And the lavender, the viburnum, and the honeysuckle.

The peonies are our summer’s first favorite, lush bowls of sherbet and cream, ruffles of crimson and rose, pink powder puffs. Irises raising their ballerina arms over their fringed petticoats, the Siberians’ pale to deepest purple petals, like birds in flight, flying over the cascading foliage, the golden flags splayed above sword-like leaves, and the Japanese iris’s deep purple velvet striped yellow. Clouds of diaphanous lavender catmint and chartreuse sprays of lady’s mantle along the garden’s rim with vivid spikes of violet salvia piercing through the effervescent froth. Indigo wands of baptisia and periwinkle racemes of wisteria, meadow rue lifting its tufts of fluffy, mauve flowers and cotton-candy filipendula. And roses — sitting beneath arches of deep crimson and blush pink buds and blossoms and breathing in their heavenly fragrance. Popsicle stalks of lemony false lupine. Lychnis with its bright crimson velvety flowers on velvety silver leaves. Swirls of the sunny yellow challises of evening primroses – is there anything as cheerful?  Magenta cushions of geranium and brushes of astilbes in pale pink and raspberry, crimson and cream, painting gardens later crested with an array of pink phloxes mingling with the lilac sprays of obedient plant. Lilies! Trumpets of peach, copper and apricot, watermelon and lemon, marmalade and caramel, butterscotch, pumpkin and plum, bursting beneath branches of fiery crocosmia.  Bushels of dark gold rudbeckia and echinecea, their purple petals circling their bright orange cones. Beebalm spurting its scarlet pom-poms and veronica nodding its colbalt spires. Deep blue saucers opening from the plump globes of balloon flowers and the six-foot tall stalks of hollyhock, studded with melon-ball buds unfurling to ruffly saucers in vibrant lipstick hues.

The wildflowers of summer are as lovely as our cultivars, and many of us invite many of them into our gardens. The daisies that freckle the meadows and self-sow along walkways in our lawn, the delicate umbrellas of Queen Anne’s lace providing a ceiling of horizontal reprieve above spires of purple liatrus, black-eyed Susans spurting among lilies, blades of gentle ladies’ bells, patches of pale yellow cinquefoil, and mulleins, soft buttery saucers climbing six foot stalks over clumps of velvety, silver foliage. And though we coax many natives into our gardens, transplanting and scattering seeds, there are some wildflowers we leave to the wild, where it’s always a thrill to encounter them, the singular lady’s slippers in the woodlands at the start of the season, and the bright lobelia along the river banks toward summer’s end.

Along with wildflowers there’s wildlife. As the peep frogs’ song dims, the music of the tree toads rises. The first of the butterflies flock to the buddleia, a fountain of violet flowers along silver, willowy leaves, and later emerge from the clusters of milkweed. Salmon coral bells beckon the hummingbirds for evening sips along their circuitous routes. Dragonflies find the flat stones rimming the water garden and thread the surrounding air. Birds entertain us from dawn till dusk, the thrill of sighting a cardinal, a blue bird, or an oriole, a hawk or a falcon, a heron or a crane never lessening, and once the glorious sunflowers turn to seeds, we look forward to visiting with the chickadees.  We watch growing goslings glide in straight lines across the water, and growing turkeys follow their mothers in straight lines across the grass. Though not always welcomed guests in gardens, our rabbits seem satisfied with the clover we allow in the lawn, and though we’ve only seen a few this year, evidence of deer is discovered in a few nibbled phloxes. Squirrels, which usually scurry around in autumn, have spent the summer with us, and foxes have become familiar friends. They come very close to us when we’re on the deck, acknowledging us with equal measures of curiosity and trust, though they become quite territorial in the dark, when our presence causes them to bark emphatically, as though informing us that the nighttime turf is theirs, not ours.

Beyond our gardens there are other seasonal delights – the first night with the windows open, the first evening stroll without a sweater, the first barefoot morning across the dewy grass, the first firefly, the first shooting star. The rivers eventually slow enough to cross, the ponds warm enough for swimming. The unfurling of the leaves suddenly creates the dark corridors of country roads that allow only dappled sunlight. In our lawns, we seek pools of cool air within the scalloped shadows of saturated leaves. In the forest, it’s the slivers of green light through the needled canopies we search for, their warm currents of air.

Summer means: inching toward the solstice, to the long languid hours of hammocks with books, of contemplating cloud pictures, of fishing. Fireworks and thunderstorms, campfires and s’mores, country fairs, the shore. Strawberry patches, blueberry bushes, raspberry canes. Farmer’s markets and our own vegetable gardens, harvested for supper on the picnic table, full of cut cucumbers and crocks of fresh pickles, bowls of steamed string beans, stacks of corn on the cob, sliced tomatoes, zucchini fritters. Fields filled with veils of Queen Anne’s Lace, the scent of freshly mown hay, the buzz of bees, locusts’ electrifying alarms, crickets’ cheerful chirps, and at night, the music of the insects lulling us to sleep.

My favorite event this summer was when I noticed the season’s first fireflies starting to sprinkle the darkness. I told our grandson I had a surprise for him, and in a departure from the routine, which is another summertime custom, we ventured into the night together. He ran around the yard — the trees, the shrubs, the gardens – barefoot in the dark for a half of an hour, his arms flung to the sky, chasing them. And when he tired, we sat together on the lawn and watched the “Strawberry Moon” rise over the horizon.  Simple pleasures — the rising moon, shooting stars, fireflies –yes – we’re very lucky, but you don’t need a four-year-old to return to them.