Tonight is the year’s longest night in the Northern Hemisphere. In Seattle, today was only eight hours long. But now the light returns! Today is Winter, but we move onwards every day towards the Equinox, and Spring.

The shortest day of the year means the darkest times are behind us.

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This cedar tree in my back yard looks like a regular-sized tree, until you realize the fence is six feet tall and the bench is a regular garden bench. Our guess is that the tree is maybe 300 years old. It is getting ready to drop some needles like it does every fall. It is waiting for rain, like we all are in Western Washington.

Very old cedar tree dwarfs the bench below it.

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Finally spent a little time cleaning up the rose bed. I get to be out there among them, admiring them, and they get all tidied up. My favorite time of day, too.

A spray of Peace roses, backlit in the late afternoon sun

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I love these tiny, lacy flowers within the flowers, within the flowers! that some hydrangeas have. With our acidic soils here in the Pacific Northwest, they are certainly blue!

hydrangea in the garden

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The deeply colored stargazers look good this year, with the red and orange daylilies as a backdrop.

Speckled and glorious stargazer lilies bloom in my garden

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The recent warm weather in Seattle has been beautiful and sunny, true summertime for me.

Cherry tree in late afternoon light

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This year my sweetpeas have done so well. I’ve learned that they really do need loose, fertile soil and a lot of sun. Even in this heatwave (Seattle is having a record-breaking five days over 90), they are blooming so beautifully. They seem to be most fragrant in the late afternoons and early evenings, after the sun has faded.

Garden sweetpeas.

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The glories of the late afternoon sun in the rose garden!

Grasses, lavender and roses in bloom in the late afternoon light

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At the incredible Bayview Nursery in Whidbey Island, WA, the combination of horticultural skill AND beautiful, artful display came together brilliantly in this tall raised basket of starry petunias.

Many colorful petunias displayed in an overhead basket on a standnursery

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Hubby was golfing on our little Whidbey Island vacation and saw these wave clouds! And it was so scenic, as well!

Looking north from the 7th hole at Galaxy Golf Course on Whidbey Island, WA, in early morning, on the first day of summer

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Irises’ leaves are swords in the garden, and in the right light are a canvas.

Late afternoon sun paints shadows on iris leaves

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Spring is farther along, and these grape hyacinths, or muscari, are in full display as they multiply easily in my Seattle garden.

See the tiny white fringed edges on each tiny flower?

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