Dinosaurs and Sky Walkers.

6-17-12 SHORT HILLS: Gorgeous weekend, we hosted granddaughter Lucy while her Mom and Dad were out of town. Saturday we discovered Mesozoic critters living in the Jersey meadowlands, almost within the shadow of the Empire State Building. Dinosaurs were moving and growling, and I had thought they were as dead as the mobsters there.

Today we, Lucy and I, tried the Tree Tops Adventure Course at Turtle Back Zoo. Judy kept her feet firmly planted while Lucy and I walked on high wires and swaying logs high in the sky. It’s definitely an adventure, I even scraped a finger on the zip line.

 
Tree Tops Adventure.
 
Petting Zoo.
 
Did you hear footsteps?

Lucy in the Sky.
 
Have you seen this one at your feeder?

Siebold Snipped.

6-14-12 SHORT HILLS: Yesterday I transplanted three bleeding hearts that I had brought down from VT. They look a little beat up, but will probably be fine. I have had some successful bleeding hearts here, but they haven’t made any seed pods. In VT they make thousands of seeds and spread readily, especially in shady areas. I’d rather have them self-spreading than weeds which are only too happy to volunteer.

Today I did an extensive pruning of a Siebold viburnum. They grow and spread readily to the point that they can be considered invasive, but are an attractive shrub with mounds of white flowers in the spring. They can easily get to twenty and even thirty feet tall, usually with mutiple trunks. One odd feature is the odor of a crushed leaf—burning rubber. Anyway, one was growing over and hanging over a magnolia, an apple and a redbud. I took that trunk down to about five feet, last year I had done the same to the other trunk. I like them, they’re great for screening, but need controlling. There are about twenty, one-foot-tall volunteers under the one I pruned, and I will probably weed-whack most of them. All the prunings made a carload for the dump.

New blooms: variegated Jacobs ladder.
 
Cabbage White Butterfly, male.
 
Hydrangea.
 
Spirea.

Rainy Day.

6-12-12 SHORT HILLS: Before we left VT yesterday morning, there were two new blooms—peony and foxglove. That peony was one that I have been spraying for that black leaf fungus or mold, spraying seems to be doing it.

In NJ things looked a bit dry, but timely rain has solved the issue. I was looking around after we got back and flushed a deer in the yard. All the hosta leaves had been eaten, and new growth on several shrubs was gone.

I had a comment from ‘Delphi77’ who wanted to know what kind of camera I use, as her/his profile has no contact info, I’ll list it here. I have used SLR cameras in the past, but now use a Canon PowerShot SX230 HS. It has a good zoom, 14x, and macro feature for the flowers and, most importantly, fits in a pocket, with a little squeeze. If your camera isn’t in your pocket, you don’t get the shot.

New blooms: daylily.
 
 Daylily, native, always a treat to see them declare the beginning of summer.
 Foxglove from VT.
 
Lynn, here's Judy's table happily nestled in its new home.

Feels Like Summer.

6-10-12 VERMONT: Today was definitely summery. I did more weeding and pruning yesterday and today. We had a consult with Tim Matson, author of Earth Ponds, The Countryman Press, Woodstock, VT, 2012, about our pond’s lack of clarity. The answer remains murky, like the pond, but testing is to be done and remedies are available. Tim, it turns out, is a neighbor. Anyway, NJ tomorrow.

New blooms: stephanandra and spider wort [forgot to mention last post], valerian.

 
Contented Cows.

Soggy Vermont.

6-8-12 VERMONT: We arrived yesterday midst intense, tropical showers. There’s been a lot of rain—3.25 inches worth in the last nine days. The area above the pond has standing water and isn’t mowable.

The pond is about the same, moderately murky, but no floating algae clumps. I saw two turtles yesterday, as well as frogs, fish and crawfish.

It's definitely cool at night, we had a fire last evening. Other than pull a few weeds yesterday, all I did was repair the canine invisible fence. We had dinner in town with Chris and Bob.

New blooms: weigela, Wentworth viburnum, Asian lilac, white spirea, roses, Solomons seal, meadow rue, thyme.
 
Canadian Tiger Swallowtail feeding on lilac.
Early hybrid daylily.
 
Wentworth Viburnum has flowers similar to Doublefile Viburnum. The small, inner flowers are the ones that need fertilization, and the large, outer flowers have a bigger display to attract the pollinators.

Beautyberry.

6-5-12 SHORT HILLS: There was another 0.4 inches of rain yesterday, and today is dark, damp and cool with more rain on the way. I haven’t had to do much lately, just some odds and ends.

Beautyberry [Callicarpa japonica] is a deciduous shrub that gets to six feet tall and wide. Its most striking feature is the berries that are a neon-violet color, round, small and grow in clusters in the fall. Birds will eat them, and they might repel mosquitoes. The flowers are inconspicuous and are appearing now. They are tiny, maybe a quarter inch across.

New blooms: hydrangea, beautyberry.


 Beautyberry, flowers and buds, with pollinator.

Beautyberry. These flowers are no more than one-quarter inch in diameter. That purple color is the same color the berries show.

Garden Titration.

6-2-12 SHORT HILLS: It’s back to spring weather, in the seventies, after a storm last night that dumped 0.7 inches of rain and blew a bunch of dead branches out of the trees. All the indoor plants have escaped to the yard for summer vacation.

Today I did an hours worth of pruning and weeding, sprayed the mildew again, and re-fed a half-dozen shrubs that look tired with yellowish leaves. The process reminds me of titration in Chemistry Class. 

That lab procedure consists of adding known amounts of acid or alkali to a solution to neutralize it. The amount you add tells you the exact strenght of the original solution. Anyway, the plants respond to the first or second treatment or require further feedings before looking better, or dying. You need to give them a month or so before deciding that the response was adequate or inadequate.

New blooms: sweetspire.

Sweetspire.

Sweetspire, a compact shrub, tolerant of low light, with bottle-brush flowers.