July 29, 2012 / Leslie

Sunday in the Garden – It’s Been an Audiobook Summer

During the summer I like to spend my free time outdoors reading on the back deck. But this summer it has either been way too hot or I’ve been working endlessly in the garden. It seems wrong to complain about warm weather and endless sunshine, but that’s what happens where there is almost no rain for a month.

In the spring I was busy planting the veggie garden, herb garden, perennial gardens and flower boxes. I feel like I’ve spent most of June and July watering to keep them alive. The photo above is the perennial garden off my back deck. This is its third year and it has filled out nicely. The snapdragons and spider flowers, which are annuals, were volunteers that came back on their own.

To the right is one of my flower boxes on top of the deck railing. Those are begonia, a favorite of mine because they are so easy to grow and tolerate sun or shade, they only demand water. In the background the tall yellow coneflower is in full bloom in spite of receiving very little water, proving that it really is a drought proof native plant.

On the left is a close-up of the Coreopsis, also in full bloom, cutting a nice yellow swath across the back of the garden. It also is native and tolerates dry soil. Below to the right is my new perennial garden out front. It’s only half done because of the drought, but it’s the one that has taken up the most time. The grass had to be removed, holes dug, soil amended, plants purchased and in some cases divided from plants in the back garden. Phew.

All this activity in the yard has given me a lot of time to listen to audiobooks.

While updating my list of books completed for the audiobook challenge I realized that I was now listening to my 34th book for 2012. That’s almost half of what I’ve read this year. Now I can truly call myself and Audio Fiend!

How is your summer reading going? Audio or print?

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