Summer is peeking in at the Island, with buds and bushes in full bloom and sunsets that spread across the western sky with rosy-hued fingertips.

And it’s summer for business too — shops are opening, gardeners and farmers are busy putting flowers and crops in the ground, and more than a few new shingling and painting jobs are in evidence around the Island.

In other words, it’s Memorial Day weekend. This is the weekend when the first big crowds arrive on the Vineyard. But while the Island steels itself for the small tidal wave of tourists and summer residents, another contingent has a keen eye for the actual Memorial Day holiday.

On Monday morning at 9:30 the annual Memorial Day parade will leave the American Legion Hall post in Vineyard Haven across from the Tisbury School. Veterans and others will march along the avenue of flags on Pine Tree Road to the cemetery where there will be a ceremony. A total of 425 flags will fly, symbolizing the veterans from the Vineyard, living or deceased.

“It’s very touching sometimes,” said Ed Colligan, commander of the American Legion Hall post. “People really enjoy participating in Memorial Day. It’s sad that they forget the veterans that served, you know? The ones that died especially too.”

The ceremony will include flag raising by a Boy Scout and a Girl Scout, the singing of the national anthem and a prayer by Father Lopes from the Good Shepherd Parish in Vineyard Haven. Then the group will lay wreaths on boulders commemorating the wars that have been fought in the last century.

It will be a time for reflection about the men and women who are currently fighting overseas.

“They don’t want to be there either, but they’re there to stand up for us,” said Mr. Colligan. “They won’t be over here for their own kids’ summers.”

On Friday (this afternoon) the Edgartown and Tisbury Schools will have their annual marches to the sea. In Vineyard Haven the students will trek to Owen Park, while in Edgartown they will march to Memorial Wharf; all will throw flowers into the sea. At Memorial Wharf, Edgartown students will listen to retired Lieut. Col Fred B. Morgan Jr. speak. The traditional march in Edgartown has been around as long as principal John Stevens can remember.

“When I was a little kid I picked lilacs out of my neighbor’s yard and brought them to school and passed them along to the seventh graders at that time, and when I was a seventh grader I threw them into the sea myself,” Mr. Stevens said.

Another Island tradition will be the annual Tisbury town picnic at the Tashmoo spring pumping station, which begins at noon on Monday.

But back to those crowds.

“It’s like someone regurgitated 100,000 people on the street,” said Mocha Mott’s barista Gordon Healy, remembering past Memorial Day weekends in Oak Bluffs.

The Steamship Authority can confirm the prediction for crowds; general manager Wayne Lamson said all ferries are booked coming over from Woods Hole on Friday and returning on Monday.

The Martha’s Vineyard Airport is expecting heavy travel as well. Two new flight services have just begun from JFK airport to the Vineyard, one with Delta and one with JetBlue. JetBlue flights for Friday and Monday are nearly full.

Still, no one is predicting yet what the summer will be like.

“Some people won’t book until 10 days prior until they see what the weather forecast is going to be. It’s a lot more short-term booking so it’s very hard to predict,” said airport manager Sean Flynn.

“The jury is still out on what the weather will be like for the summer,” said carpenter Drew Kinsman, commenting that in Mays past, there would already have been days when people would have gone to the beach.

Not this year.

“It’s the end of May and it’s still in the 50s. That’s not great for us,” said Ron DiOrio, co-owner of Craftworks in Oak Bluffs. The forecast for the weekend at press time was warm and sunny.

But it turns out that not every business likes the sunshine. Dermott Quinn, pub manager at The Newes from America in Edgartown, said his business gets better when the rains come.