My garden at home receives attention every day as I harvest lettuce and radishes for salads, protect tender young seedlings from sneaky chickens, and thoroughly enjoy the succession of colorful and fragrant flowers (oh, honeysuckle!) There’s another garden to wander in, and it grows wild on mountains slopes and along creeks. Every part of it awakens the senses and will not be ignored: the rush of melted snow water over tumbled boulders; the melodies of thrushes and calls of flycatchers with spaces between the songs; the humidity of the air as mist drapes over ridges above; the lushness of rain-greened grasses sweeping across the hillside; the rough weathered texture of venerable Douglas-fir bark; four parallel vertical lines on a pine trunk from long-ago bear claws; the saturated red of scarlet gilia (Gilia agregata) blending with the purple spikes and lupines and pale yellow of sulfur buckwheat. “Skyrocket” is another name for the scarlet gilia, and when I see it blooming I know that the 4th of July is approaching.

After what seems like weeks of gray gloomy weather, the jet stream has shifted north and warm air is flowing into the Pacific Northwest. The mist has burned away and I have a hunch that my hiking boots will stay dry for awhile. How will the gardens respond to the true arrival of summer? Wait and see…