Georgia summers are no joke. To avoid the hot and humid air, we stayed indoors most of the time during the day and only go out after the sun sets. When it comes to our garden, both Juro spiders and mosquitos are thriving once again. I have to wear long sleeves, long pants, socks, and shoes before venturing into our backyard to do the bare minimum of maintenance. Sadly, I missed the first bloom of our pond lily, the first bloom of bog sage, and probably many batches of frog hatchlings.

Before we noticed, dragonflies started hovering all around our lily pond. Whenever you approach the area, frogs let out grumpy peeps and jump into the pond water one after another. For a while, we couldn’t find any goldfish in our pond and thought some predators had eaten them all. We were sad not to see the bright orange-red commas swirling in the dark green water. Then, one day, more goldfish appeared. The older ones must have been eaten, but thanks to their taupe color, the youngsters safely grew up and became visible again.

This is the fourth year since we made the pond. It is a mature, self-sustaining, and self-cleaning pond that requires minimal maintenance. The only thing we do is remove fallen leaves in the fall to prevent too much nutrient build-up at the bottom of the pond. It's a tricky job because you need to be alert to spot any baby goldfish whose color blends in. Waterlily and horsetail come back year after year. Wild daffodils magically appeared and slowly surrounded the pond, along with irises. Dragonflies began appearing last year, and this year, they've multiplied significantly. They’re such beneficial visitors, naturally helping to keep the mosquito population in check. Matt laid a wooden board from the bog area extending into the water, allowing wildlife such as turtles to hang out.

Just like the scorching weather, flowers in July are usually more intense and vibrant. Our tender and pastel spring palette has been replaced by red autumn sages, purple coneflowers with their orange cones, blue and yellow hyssops, and butterfly bushes. Hummingbirds can't afford to be picky now. They frequent the butterfly bushes and coneflowers, but usually, they only hang out among sages, lavenders, and hyssops—just a couple of months ago.

We did a pretty good job keeping mosquitoes away from our deck this year. We immediately pour all the water collected by trugs and pots into our rain buckets and keep mosquito dunks in the buckets. These dunks are great—they release a bacteria that targets mosquito larvae but is safe for everything else. With fish, tadpoles, and a solar panel fountain set up in our little pond on the deck, there are no surviving mosquitoes. However, once we venture into the long grass and wooded area, it turns into a brutal human blood feast. So the safest way to admire the summer garden really is to retreat back to our house and watch it through the glass.

Last note. I hold a bit of a grudge against all my ungrateful backyard wild friends. We finally had an abundant harvest of peaches this year. I’ve been counting down the days until we could harvest them. Just a weekend trip to Florida a couple of weeks ago, and when we got back, every single peach was gone. They must have ripened while we were away, and I suspect our local squirrels and birds had a feast in our absence. Can't you leave at least one for us to taste?!

Weather report: Cloudy summer afternoon, will rain in half an hour. 70° - 82°F