Life's better on the porch . . . .

For those of you who are Starbucks frequenters, you know that the theme this summer has been all about the porch at Starbucks. The games, the coffee cups, the drinks with raspberries and pictures of porch swings all represent relaxing times around home. Greg and I do a lot of porch sitting, and this is the time that I enjoy my flowers the most. They smell nice and attract the butterflies and the buzzy bees, and they generally give me a lot of pleasure. This post is just to share some of my pretties with you, and to show Dori that the plants I adopted from her are happy campers in their new home on our porch and deck.

The first one is my hibiscus, which I bought a couple of years ago at Home Depot to fill in where we took out a shrub by the front porch. The first two years, it managed to hang on and to show one or two blooms. But this year, it seems to have decided to make a home. There are about 100 buds on it, and they are opening up a few every day to impress me and dress up the yard.

The poinsettia and the hanging basket are also out on the front porch where we sit after work to read the paper and watch the neighbors coming home from work and decide what's for dinner. The rocking chairs with the striped chair pads and the papasan chair are great vantage points for all these activities. Just to the left of the poinsettia is our herb pot with basil and chives and marjoram and rosemary. This is convenient so that I can pop out with the herb scissors and snip some seasonings for the meat or vegetables when we cook. MMMMMmmmmmm!

We haven't totally abandoned suburbia, because we still have the deck on the back of the house with our table and chairs and our grill. Although we sometimes eat so much cheese and crackers on the porch that dinner is abandoned, the "real meals" we eat outside are usually on the deck in the back off the kitchen. We scare the birds away from the feeder and sit back there at our table. Dori gave me this daisy, which looks like something from a Van Gogh painting in the middle of the table, don't you think?

Happy summer! Starbucks is right. Life's better on the porch.