Reunion Season.

6-23-36 VERMONT: We have had lots and lots of rain, 2.35 inches, with a soaking almost daily. It’s been cool, and we’re not in summer clothes. We have had fires some nights. 

Our daughter and son-in-law, both ‘85s, hosted their reunion, their 40th, with 14 guests here. They all brought food, and mostly took it away after, they were great guests. Actually we have known them since they were undergraduates. Appropriately, they all raved about the house and gardens. Alison and Dan stayed on to help with the clean up.

I have done chores and planted a delphinium, ‘Cobalt Dreams’, D. elatum and a Penstemon, ‘Pink Pearls’, P. barbatus. Both are on the pond bank near the roses. I have started fencing the pond bank beds to keep the lawn mowers away from the flowers.

New blooms: red yarrow, Russian sage, red spirea, creeping Veronica, cinquefoil.

Ruby-throated hummingbird taking a break.

Old folks in their rockers on the front porch with their dogs.

The '85s and some significant others.

That's an Olympic rower relaxing in the stern.

An Itoh peony in yellow.

One of the last iris as they prepare to exit the stage.

Roses bordering the pasture. June is rose month here.

Orange Morning.

6-17-26 VERMONT: It’s been cool since that last rain. More rain predicted for tomorrow and possibly all weekend. After the drought last summer, I don’t ever complain about too much rain. Technically it’s not summer yet anyway. 

I forgot to mention a few flowers in the previous post: rodgersia, bishops weed, wild daisy, yarrow. Apologies to those plants, no slight intended.

The lawn mowers were here this morning and nipped some of the flowers. I’ll have to scold them and add some fencing to the beds.

We had neighbor Diana over for dinner a few evenings ago. Her husband Steve is at fiddle camp. 

The dogs woke us up 5 AM, a few minutes before the sunrise this morning. I took a pic while in bed and half asleep through the open, screened window. 

New blooms: spider wort, foxglove, ninebark ‘Diablo’, maple leaf viburnum, blue-eyed grass, masterwort, white gas plant, rose plants by the fence.

Orange sky at 5:10, the sun came up about a minute later. It was between Mt. Lafayette and Moosilauke on the north-east horizon.

Lupin are hard to get started because they are easily pushed out by more aggressive plants. They are legumes and so are able to take nitrogen out of the air, which means they can grow where those aggressive plants cannot. To get these to grow and come back, I dug a pit and filled it with sand [no soil], a hostile habitat that lupin likes.

Foxglove, source of digitalis, that was a commonly used medication that is almost never used anymore. I had a Medical Professor, while in training, who said that Digitalis glycoside killed more people every year than Homicide.

Wild daisies are pretty, but the Shasta, garden daisies are more showy, and will show up soon.

Vermont in June.

6-15-26 VERMONT: We are here for the summer. I came up Friday and Judy on Saturday. We have been busy organizing and all that. The big storm last night gave us 1.75 inches and a lightening show that lit up the night.

The June display is open. The big three are the roses, peonies and primrose. The peonies and roses are just getting started. I have listed everything in bloom, some things finishing up and some just starting. It’s a long list.

In bloom: forget-me-not, iris, meadow rue, Jacobs ladder, peony, geranium, chive, knapweed, centaurea, bleeding heart, columbine, blue star, lamium, poppy, baptisia, rose, hybrid daylily, lupin, abelia, weigela, celandine, lady mantle, bridal wreath spirea, lilac, anemone, primrose, vetch, wild strawberry, buttercup, Wentworth viburnum, raspberry, azalea, stephanandra, Solomon seal, burning bush, sweet woodruff, ajuga, dianthus, thyme, fever few, jack-in-the-pulpit, penstemon.   

Centaurea, also called bachelor button. We have it in

Corner of the pond with roses and iris.

Hosta rule the front of the new house.

Here are some peonies.

Iris flags reflected in the pond.

An Itoh peony, a new hybrid, often in yellow.

Anemones, lupin, iris, and primrose on another corner of the pond.

Judy has the flags out and also took this pic of the old house.

Siberian iris and flag iris.

Bandit.

6-9-26 SHORT HILLS: We had a little rain, 0.45 inches, with a lot of wind that brought down some branches. We are both finishing up with medical visits, and Judy is doing lots of dog therapy sessions at mostly schools in the area.

I’m going to need help with the yard, every thing is getting over grown, and it’s too much for me now to keep up with pruning and trimming. We are packing and organizing for the summer in VT.

We had a visit from what Alison calls a ‘trash bandit’. He was furry and masked and up a tree on garbage night. I didn’t put the cans out because I was sure he/she would get into the bags. In the morning she/he was gone, and Judy put the garbage out very early.

Can you find him/her? I saw the bandit as soon as I went out on Garbage Night.

Here's a closer look.

And a close up. Rita or Randy is pretty cute.

Catalpa tree bloom.

Another look at the Southern Magnolia flower.

"June Is Bustin' Out All Over"

6-3-26 SHORT HILLS: June is one of my favorite months. It has the longest day, Juneteenth, and it’s Pride month. Judy was at Covenant House today with Blanca, and they have displays celebrating both Juneteenth and Pride. 

It’s a gorgeous day, warm and sunny. I’m already starting to worry about drought, there’s not a cloud east of the Mississippi. I finished cleaning the pool cover and re-potted the veggies and herbs, fertilized the house plants and the veggies.

We still have grackles around, and they’re draining the feeders every time I fill them. It seems to me that they should be off to Canada for breeding season by now. 

We have dinner with Lynn and Bill tomorrow, doctor visits, and at the end of next week—Vermont for the summer!

New blooms: white clover, chives, southern magnolia, hydrangea.  

Chives. A volunteer, blooms at the same time as its cousin allium all over town.

Southern Magnolia, our last magnolia to bloom. It will put out a flower almost daily for a month. The flowers is only open for one day, turns brown, and leaves the center cone to make red seeds.

White clover growing in the lawn. Being a legume, clover takes nitrogen from the air for itself, called 'fixing', and also leaves nitrogen in the soil, hence 'Where clover grows grass will follow.'

Rose made to to the window sill. The vases were made by Alison and Dan for the wedding.

Judy caught a deer on one of her walks.

Blanca helping celebrate Pride Month at Covenant House.

I was scolded for not posting any wedding pix, so here's Lily and Danna.

By Any Other name...

5-28-26 SHORT HILLS: The wedding was a blast. Judy and I spent a lot of time on the dance floor—some of it dancing. The Californians are gone back west, the house is back to normal. We needed a new dryer, which is now installed. We are in our last week or so here before VT for the summer. There was two inches of rain over the weekend, but now its dry. 

New blooms: rose, holly, St. Johns wort, red spirea.

Roses really are remarkable, color, aroma, I almost like them better as buds, offering the promise of flowers to come.

And here are the buds.

St. johns wort is a pretty nice flower also.

Holly. The bee is at work on these female flowers. That's right--hollies are either male or female. These flowers have a large green ball in the center, which becomes the red berry if it gets fertilized.

Holly. These are the male flowers, no green ball. The pollinators transfer the pollen from male to female.

Red spirea. Spirea is a reliable shrub with a tolerance for wet or dry conditions.

Peony is a pretty nice flower also.

Memorial Day Wedding.

5-22-26 SHORT HILLS: Jon, Siobhan, Morgan, Eoin, and Joe are here for the weekend and are exploring NYC today. Sunday is Lily and Danna’ s wedding. An exciting weekend to come. 

All the house plants are now on summer holiday in the yard. We needed help from the lawn guys to get the big ones outside. We had 0.35 inches of rain. 

While in VT, we went to Hinesburg to see Ken and Jane. They have done an extraordinary job of renovating their house, with more to come. We also worked in another superb dinner at Cloudland Farm before coming back to NJ.

Our hot spell is over and temps are back in the sixties.

New blooms: peony, tree peony, Japanese snowball, winter berry holly.  

Tree Peony. This one opened first, before the true peony and before several other ones opened.

Peony opened this morning. It is a single peony. most people are more familiar with the double form.

Japanese snowball tree has thousands of these delicate, hanging flowers on all its branches.