Are you having an out-of-body experience lately with the weather forecasts? Almost every day we're told showers and thunderstorms are likely in the area. Friday night we got about 22 drops. Yesterday afternoon, maybe 15.

My colleague here at the paper, Tony Wood, is a learned student of weather. Despite my whining, he tells me June has not been an exceptionally dry month. It's been "slightly on the dry side," he says, with Philadelphia getting just 2.62 inches of rain in June, down .07 from the norm. May, on the other hand, was slightly damper than normal - 4.55 inches, a .66 increase.

No big deal, by the numbers. So how come my caryopteris looks so pathetic?

I should say PITCHFORK job ...

When Louise Mockaitis is wielding her pitchfork, stand back! I visited her this morning in the Spring Gardens community garden to watch her divide a clump of iris. Now I know this sounds terribly exciting but guess what. It was. Now I know how to do it. As they say on TV, priceless.

Louise has deep purple bearded iris that her sister in Elmira, N.Y., gave her. The rhizomes are at least a decade old. To get the most blooms and have the healthiest plants, they need to be divided every three years or so, Louise says. Using her pitchfork, she attacked the dry soil of her garden plot and skillfully upended a large clump.

She shook the dirt off the roots and using her bare hands, pulled the gnarled clump apart - with difficulty. But she did it, pulling off one rhizome at a time. Her other iris now will have room to breathe and the divided ones will thrive elsewhere.

Louise says that when you're trying to figure out where to divide, look for a 'Y' shape with the rhizome in the middle and the leafy part on the sides. And when you replant, plant with the fans - the leafy parts - going out. (Trim them to a few inches in length so that they look like a 'V' as you look at them.) Be sure to bury the rhizome only half-way. Yes, half is exposed on top and half is buried in soil. What can I say? Iris are weird.

But they're very resiliant. So if you can't get the divided rhizomes in the ground immediately, you're probably OK. But try. You can soak them in a bucket in the meantime. "This is stressful for a plant," Louise says.

And speaking of stress, best to do all this in the cooler parts of the day, as much for yourself as for the iris. Of course, on a day like today, there IS no cooler part. We were sweating. Actually, I was taking notes and photos. Tough work, to be sure, but poor Louise did all the real work! As I said, she's a pro.

A reader called to ask about hummingbirds. What are the best things to plant to draw them to your garden? Anyone who's been blessed with a visit from these exquisite creatures knows that this is one of the most special things about having a diverse garden. It's quite easy to lure them and I'm happy to oblige.

Hummingbirds are constantly on the go but you won't find them hanging out much. They dash from flower to flower with unnerving energy and speed, much faster and flightier than the butterflies you also want to visit. Hummingbirds, believe it or not, can fly not just the normal way, but sideways and even backwards! And they've been called "glittering garments of the rainbow" for their irridiscent and colorful beauty.

So you definitely want these guys in your garden. And here's the neat thing: Hummingbirds and butterflies like many of the same plants. So if you plant wisely, your garden will be literally humming with activity.

OK. Not to sound like a broken record, but native plants are your best choice for giving hummingbirds the nectar they seek. The blossoms should be tubular and red, especially red, with orange or pink a distant second. And be sure to plant not just one, but a patch.

Hummingbirds like fuzzy plants for nest-building materials. Stuff like cinnamon fern. And they enjoy a bath as much as the next guy.  

In my garden, trumpet vine is a favorite with hummers. Trumpet vine can be a real pain - more on this later - but one of its redeeming qualities is the number of hummingbirds (and other birds) it reliably draws. Columbine is another favorite, along with butterfly weed, coral bells, cardinal flower (big time), bee balm (big time times 10), Solomon seal, scarlet sage, nasturtium, zinnia and anise hyssop.

I have most of those things in my garden and can testify that these plants really do bring the hummingbirds in to visit. One night, as we sat with guests outside eating dinner, two popped in just a few feet from us. Conversation stopped. Everyone smiled.

The word "awesome" is so overused as to drain the word of its true meaning, but this moment truly was.  

Is it me, or are the squirrels this summer especially nasty? Every day they're digging in the flower beds, making holes the size of a fist and tossing mulch everywhere. If I didn't know better, I'd think the garden was home to prairie dogs.

The other day two birds were communing in the bird bath and a squirrel began stalking them. He looked like a cat about to pounce. When did this behavior show up in the DNA of a squirrel?

Maybe the shrinking economy has made them mean. Anger management classes could be in order.

The free stuff here is KNOWLEDGE, and good for Awbury Arboretum for offering a free workshop about organic gardening. This is a topic that's very hot right now, and may I also add, one that's more nuanced than you might think. When all is said and done, I strongly believe organic is the way to go. But this is something we all need help with.

I plan to go to this workshop - on Saturday (6/28) from 10-11 a.m. at the arboretum, which is in Germantown. I first visited Awbury in very early spring and found it delightful. There is a sense of playfulness here that's really fun, a creative use of tree stumps and a hidden, walled garden that begged to be explored. So after the workshop, be sure to take a tour.

Here's the website for directions: www.awbury.org/

You do need to call and reserve a spot for the workshop. It's being held in the Francis Cope House, the main building on the grounds, and space is limited. Here's the number: 215 224 5872.

I plan to bring a list of questions, an open mind and as inquisitive a brain as I can muster on a Saturday morning. Hope to see you there.

Even in the garden, where I believe we are at our most authentic, we can be just as unconscious as we are elsewhere. This year in my garden, I suddenly realized, I've been gravitating toward yellow, a color I've always loved but until now has taken a back seat to purples and pinks. This is not by design exactly. It's a classic case of we like what we like and eventually it comes out.

I was struck this morning by the many patches of yellow that have already bloomed or are in full bloom right now: the bumpy - spectacular - spires of false lupine, the hardy yellow pansies, the new bits of yellow yarrow, the mound of evening primrose (known as sundrops) a neighbor shared last spring, the ever-taller sunflower cousins, and the 'Angelina' sedums blooming up and down the walkway.

Most of these are new. And do they cheer me up! I think this signals a new day in my garden, one infused with horticultural sunshine to complement the real thing. It changes the palette dramatically, perhaps a sign of growing confidence.  

As we start the summer of 2008, here's a photo to remind us of the incredible beauty of this season in the garden. It may not look like this in a few weeks, but this morning was one of the most beautiful yet. (Could be 'cause I've been watering every night.)

Now if we could just get some rain ... and I mean, real rain, not the wimpy washouts we've had over the last few weeks. Thunder, lightning and then nothing. No fair! We'd like a good soaking. Sunday's forecast looked promising. Forecasters were talking thunderstorms. We had not one drop.

Happy summer!

A few weeks ago I thought it was Poppy Awareness Week. Everywhere I went I saw poppies.  Now it's little green things. First, I pulled the last of the pea vines out of my vegetable patch. They're done, fried, crisp as a potato chip. I squeezed open the last few green pods and popped those sweet little peas into my mouth raw. None of my meager pea crop made it to dinner. Or I should say made it into the main dish.

I put them on homemade pizza. I put them in salads. Mostly I put them in my mouth. So that's one little green thing.

The second: baby figs. At last! I did my best to kill this tree but it has confounded my efforts and survived. I look forward to roasted figs with melted cheese, figs in my salad, warm figs in my mouth and best of all, FIG GELATO.

Third: grapes. Nothing stirs my inner Italian than the sight of small, hard, green grapes that I know will grow into marble-like, rose-colored, Reliance table grapes. Problem is, I'm basically supplying the bird population of Northwest Philadelphia with delectable eating grapes. I've yet to harvest one before the birds do.

But that doesn't detract from the thrill of watching this process unfold. Birds gotta eat, after all.

Friends are emailing photos of their roses, all in spectacular bloom right now. Mine, too, and this NATURALLY has fueled a desire to buy even more. My current favorites run the gamut from groundcover roses like 'Good and Plenty' - the color of those scrumptious pink and white candies - and 'Happy Chappy' - a pink-gold-apricot - that are blooming up a nice, compact storm in the garden ... to several fragrant climbers that are doing their thing on the fence out front.

After reading a lot about roses, and talking to gardeners who grow them, I looked for climbers that are repeat bloomers, very disease resistant and fragrant. There is so much hype out there about plants - and roses are no exception. To read the blurbs, you'd think every single rose possesses all of the qualities I seek. So I jumped into the garden forums and flipped through some rose books and made my choices.

They are: 'Compassion,' 'Ginger Syllabub,' 'Golden Showers' and 'Portlandia' - all yellow, peach, apricot, pink - to climb on the front fence in whatever patches of sunshine I could find. The bright yellow 'Golden Showers' just went in over the weekend, with lots of water and mulch, but the others have a year or two under their belts and are doing great. It's fun to watch passersby suddenly stop, lean down to smell these incredible flowers and smile as they go on their way. I do it myself. (It's a bonus for taking out the trash.)

I planted four more climbers on the pergola, intertwined with Clematis 'Montana Rubens' and 'Henryi,' which truly deserves to be the best-selling white clematis - red 'Don Juan,' pink 'Zephirine Drouhin,' yellow/orange 'Joseph's Coat' and, I think, cream-colored 'Highfield.' These are too young to be blooming but they look healthy. Perhaps next year.

Two creamy pink 'New Dawns' and a new red and white 'Fourth of July' are climbing up trellises in the herb garden, along with a new hybrid tea called 'Lady Bird Johnson,' that is outstanding. And speaking of bonuses, 10 percent of the net sales of this rose, chosen personally by Mrs. Johnson, go to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin. 'Lady Bird' produces five- or six-inch coral-orange blooms that last and last and also have a fruity fragrance.

I've stayed away from hybrid teas for their fussy reputation and my desire not to spray, but this rose is enough to make short work of my objections. We'll see how successful I am ... Meanwhile, I'd appreciate thoughts and suggestions from any veteran rosarians out there. What do you like? And how do you care for your roses?

It's no secret why gardeners love roses. Is there anything lovelier in June?