Photo credit: Kim Hairston, Baltimore Sun

Well. Not much to do with gardening, anyway.

I went kayaking yesterday afternoon in the quiet of Quiet Waters Park in Annapolis. It was cooler there than any place else in my muggy town. And apparently mosquitos can't fly that far out into the water.

I took the opportunity to spy on the gardens of the homes that back up to the South River. When you drive through neighborhoods, exercising your garden envy, you only get to see the front of houses. And that is often the showcase.

But backyards reveal a lot about gardener's inner selves, I think. It is the side of them they are not showing to the public.

Some of the lawns that sloped down to the water were just that. Lawns. Manicured, but no beds.

Other gardeners actually appeared to be landscaping at water's edge, around the bulkheads or down to the tiny beaches.

Still other gardeners had little patios at the end of their docks, complete with chairs, tables, umbrellas and a planter or two.

Kayaking gives you the chance to get up close to the water's edge in the uncivilized parts of the bay, too.

Branches from broken trees dip into the water and provided cover and respite for ducks and other wildlife. And someone had fashioned driftwood into giant teepees, making the perfect place for waterfowl to build their nests high off the ground and away from predators.

I worry about the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Every report is worse than the last it seems. But on this afternoon, the bay was the perfect refuge ... for me and for the blue herons that were watching me, watching them.