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Last summer I planted a Passion flower vine on a large trellis in the front yard. This year the foliage climbed to the top of the trellis and up there the blooms are smiling at the sky, but can’t even see them.

My solution to this dilemma is to cut the blossoms and bring them inside where I can enjoy the exotic, incredibly 3-dimensional flower, up close and personal. Because the stems are short I put each single flower in a cute little glass and they smile up at me at the kitchen table.

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One of my favorite garden perennials is Lady’s Mantle. It is an old-fashioned, classic English garden plant and it thrives in my yard in both sun and shade. Not only does it come back every year, but it self-seeds and starts lots of new plants. I use the volunteers to fill in the bare spots in the garden and as under plantings for tall flowers like lilies and roses.

I am intrigued by the distinctive beauty of the leaves; they unfold like a lady’s fan and hold droplets of water that look like cabochon diamonds. The blooms are tiny stars and cover the plants in airy clouds of chartreuse.

I have been making lots of bouquets for the past three or four weeks. I love them in simple little airy arrangements in clear glass. I also use them as filler, like baby’s breath, to showcase larger blossoms.

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Last week, I hosted a small party for Maddie, my neighbor and a recent college graduate. We have been neighbors since she was a baby and now she’s home for the summer before leaving for Rwanda, Africa to do volunteer work in the medical field.

It was a sweet afternoon of celebration and friendship with lots of fresh summer food.

The weather was perfect – sunny and cool – one of those days from heaven! All the flowers were from the garden with the sweet peas always my favorite, so lovely to look at and perfuming the air!

I served the food in the garden room and then we had a leisurely lunch on the patio. I will share several of my recipes from this lunch in some following blog entries. We enjoyed Banana Cream Pudding for dessert and that recipe is in my July 21, 2011 entry.

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These Victorian shell ships were thoughtfully made many years ago. The sails and bodies were cut and shaped from polished shells, the holes drilled, the miniature uprights cut and finally all woven together with wires or heavy thread to build the sailboats. Surely these were made by men who once sailed the seas on real ships.

These sweet images of sail boats are now anchored on top of an old desk of mine at the beach house along with some wooden fishing boat models, several horn sailing schooners and some delightful sea birds.

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My rose arbor along my front sidewalk is in its full glory, saturated with blooms and filling the air with perfume! When I walk under the trellis, the fragrance is stunning and takes me out of this world and transports me to heaven.

The name of this climbing rose is City of York. It is a classic, old fashioned English rose, sometimes called The Wedding Rose.