The recent warm weather has warmed the earth and the perennials are into their “I'm happy it's warm again” growing time. We feared that we had lost our beloved Japanese Tree Peony as every bud we touched was brown and not tender green. On Friday when Tom was here he discovered we had new buds at the base of the trunk; our joyful sounds echoed throughout the resort. It seems the extreme cold winter has caused problems like this throughout the regional gardens; soon we will all know for sure if the plants survived or not.

Still on the topic of peonies: the Lodge was gifted with a yellow peony by Burntside guests, Barbara and Laverne Dunsmore of Countryside Gardens in Delano, MN last fall. We know the old adage of perennials is:

• the first year they sleep
• the second year they creep
• the third year they leap

Yellow Peony

Tom has indulged us with his weekly bouquets of fresh from his garden flowers for our reception counter. This weeks arrangement is tall and full of purple dames rocket, yellow and purple iris and white lilacs...it is, as usual, exquisite. Tom's flowers are always bloom earlier than ours, are more vibrant in color and extravagantly beautiful.

The summer solstice was a beautiful summer day with temperatures at 80. Our Finnish guest in Cabin # 15 regaled us with memories of the traditional bonfire and dancing all night long in celebration back in Finland....sounds like a fabulous way to welcome summer.