Why we long for July in March

Perfect flowers, soft rains, warm sun - to start

Dripping with purple

I love the wonder of snow in winter, but sometimes - usually after shoveling - I get tired of it.

Today I was going through summer flowers from my garden, to see if any qualified for Flickr's best flower photo contest. I could suddenly smell the perfumes of July and feel the warmth of that sun on my face. The longing was acute and quite physical.

A very tiny dahlia, quite perfectly formed

To keep all of us going until July comes along again, with its heady rush of sensual experiences, I posted some of the summer garden photos that are special for me but that don't qualify for the contest.