summer love.

...the heat has been brutal this summer, but it's definitely paying off in our yard - the crepe myrtles are putting on a real show!

my love affair with crepe myrtles began the summer my family visited williamsburg - I'm not sure the year, but I was probably about 14 - I remember that smooth trunk and the colors (that's also the trip where I first had virginia ham on beaten biscuits...another love...and another story) and something about it being a tree - or a shrub - for warmer, more southern climates than new jersey where we lived at the time. summertime hot and lovely crepe myrtles have been linked in my mind for years.

fast forward to the mid 1990's when marc and I are landscaping the front yard - we planted three magenta pink trees on center stage

added white and pink ones to our side yard a few years later

and finally a few purple ones in 2003 when we re-worked our driveway.

it's taken a while and I am so thankful we still live here to see it!  all these in bloom, it really makes me smile!