Summer Begins.

6-17-18 VERMONT: We’ve been here for a couple of days getting set for the summer. The days have been warm and sunny and the nights cool, but things are dry and we need some rain. I have been watering all the new plantings, which have been looking droopy.

The corn is up and about a foot tall, inside the cage. I will need to take the cage down now the seedlings are growing, and the crows have been foiled. I hope I can do that without destroying anything.

Neighbors have added turtles to the pond, and Judy also found one on the road yesterday. I guess there are six or seven now. There are tons of tadpoles and not many fish, which is why there are a lot of tadpoles.

The phoebes nesting by the back door of the old mudroom have been incredibly busy from sunrise to sundown feeding four chicks. Speaking of sunrises, there was a brilliant red one this morning sometime between four and five o’clock.

I planted a huge astilbe, A. chinensis ‘Mighty Red Quinn’, that I got at The Farm in NJ in a shady spot that has resisted or rejected everything I planted there. Otherwise I have done a little pruning, weeding and watering.

New blooms: Wentworth viburnum, maple-leaf viburnum, anemone, bishops weed, weigela, knapweed, meadow rue, bearded iris, Siberian iris, Jacobs ladder, peony, chives, thyme, showy lady slipper, lupin, rose, trascantia, lady’s mantle, white spirea, Asian lilac, water lily, stephanandra.


Indigo bunting and goldfinch again.

Primrose, iris, anemone, forget-me-not by the pond.

Canadian tiger swallowtail on yellow flag iris.

Brady in the buttercups, but eating grass around them.

The daylily in the center is a double with duplicate reproductive organs and twelve petals. I've never seen that before.

White admiral on a daisy.

The phoebes are busy feeding four chicks. They are back and forth all day long with bugs for the brood.

Early this morning.

End of the Year at Lincoln.

6-14-18 SHORT HILLS: Today was another beauty. We were at Lincoln Elementary School in Newark for the end of the year party. Judy visits there regularly during the year to help the students with reading skills. The teacher, Jo-Ann Catalano, made a hot dog lunch for everyone and followed with a sheet cake for dessert. Judy and Blair brought the therapy dogs and gifts for the kids. No reading got done today.

Yesterday I had dinner with Bill and Lynn, Judy was feeling ill then, but seems OK today.

Tomorrow we are off to VT for the summer, I always have slight ambivalence about leaving here before the late soring flowers open, but it's time to go, and there’s work to be done there.


Two smiles.

Maizie has almost enough kids patting her.

Taking a break.

Judy showing the kids how to give Maizie treats.

The black dog is Parker. Judy and I are in the background.

The High Line and a New Aucuba.

6-12-18 SHORT HILLS: We had a brief visit from Jon, who was on his way from CA to India on a work trip. We had dinner Saturday at Taste of Asia in Chatham, and on Sunday went to NYC to walk The High Line.

There were plenty of other walkers on a nice afternoon. The lower end of the elevated park is lush with vegetation. It is an abandoned, elevated RR spur converted to an amble above the traffic, a great idea and great execution. I spotted a stand of equisetum, an antique plant, from the Paleozoic, and a nice cluster of maidenhair fern. There are lots of benches, vistas, flowers and birds. We started at 12th St. and did the whole 1.5 miles to 34th St. The northern part of The High Line, added last, is still under development. We walked east on 34th to the Empire State Building and then south back to the car in plenty of time to get back to NJ and the airport for Jon's next flight.

Thursday we were also in the city to visit Val, Steve and Lucy. Val gave me some magic beans to plant in VT.

Yesterday I went to the Farm and bought a gorgeous astilbe for a problem spot in VT, and an Aucuba japonica ‘Mr. Goldstrike’, a shrub with yellow spotted leaves that I planted next to the house between the den and dining room windows.

New blooms: elderberry.


At the Farm picking out a couple of plants, I heard birds everywhere, went to the car for a cam and caught a chipping sparrow and...

A great blue heron. At first I thought a garbage bag had blown into the tree, but took a picture and enlarged it in the camera to see the bird. I missed another bird who wasn't patient enough to wait for me while I went for the camera.

We walked The High Line, in NYC, with Jon. This is a big stand of equisetum. Equisetum is the only relic and survivor of the tree/fern forests of the late Paleozoic.

The west side of Manhattan has construction everywhere. I counted seven sites in this shot.

A lot of the old RR tracks are still visible.

Architects have designed a lot of odd looking buildings near The High Line.

Last Concert of the Season.

6-9-18 SHORT HILLS: We have had more lovely days with afternoon temps at 80° or so, and nighttime temps in the sixties. I did more pruning and trimming and am about done here, but whenever I am outside, I see something else that I missed.

When the black pine near the house fell in one of the winter storms, its root ball lifted several big flagstone pavers that were next to the tree. At the time I just pushed them back in place. Later I trimmed the root ball and roots, replanted the spot after adding soil and making a mound of the residual stump. Yesterday I repositioned and re-leveled the pavers.

A few nights ago we heard the final NY Phil concert of the season, a nice program of Mozart and Tchaikovsky. We had dinner at Café Fiorello beforehand with my Aunt Jean.

New blooms: hibiscus.


Hibisicus seems to enjoy its outdoor summer vacation.

Gus looking stately.

This hydrangea is an addition this year which is why it's already in bloom. I like the color. Even when the plant's tag tells you what the color should be, its always a bit of a surprise.

The incredible complexity of the spirea flower clusters.

Spring Edges Toward Summer.

6-6-18 SHORT HILLS: Things have been wet in NJ, we’ve had 2.5 inches in the past two weeks, and nothing looks thirsty. It has also been cool and cloudy for the few days we’ve been here. The yard is fully leafed out, and the neighbors have disappeared behind the foliage walls, even road noise is muted. This yard becomes very shady when the trees are all out, but not quite as shady as it used to be because we’ve lost several trees.

There’s plenty to do. Yesterday I pruned enough for a full load to go to the dump. I also pulled up three dead butterfly bushes and one dead crape myrtle. I have had no butterfly bushes survive a challenging winter intact, I’m 0 for 7.

New blooms: purple rhododendron, English holly, Asian holly, mock orange, linden viburnum, rose, Stewartia, Japanese snowball, kousa dogwood, privet, clematis.


Rose, one of my many favs.

Stewartia, a variety of camellia, but not evergreen. Every flower has one petal with a red spot.

Stewartia is a tree of moderate size.

The front part of  our garden is now in full shade. Everything here blooms, now privet and viburnums are on stage. That robin is about to use the leaning birdbath.

Clematis, one of two in this spot.

Wild Primrose and Fox.

6-2-18 VERMONT: We’re closing up to go back to NJ for a few weeks. Today I weeded, fertilized and mulched the blueberry bushes. After that we went to see the wild primrose that grow along a brook that follows a logging road not too far from here.

On the way back from town after dinner at Murphy’s, we saw a fox kit on the road near us. I got a very blurry pic that I won’t post.

New blooms: yellow flag iris, centaurea.


There's a spot in the woods just off a logging road with a brook where primrose grow wild.

The brook and primrose wander back and forth under the road for a few hundred yards.

The Bushnell game-cam won this weeks pix-comp with several deer. The one in the bottom left has antler buds.

The images show date, time, temp and moon phase.

This one is just before 4 AM this morning with a nearly full moon.

A Little Rain.

6-1-18 VERMONT: Today is overcast, muggy, hot, and it rained, only 0.1 inches but it all helps.

We had dinner with Shari and Dave last night and ran into Roger and Ann at the Lyme Inn where Ariana’s has moved.

The corn is about two inches high, and I think each hill has a seedling. Did I mention that Brady the horse is back in the pasture? He is still pretty spry for his advanced age, which we identify with.

New blooms: blue-eyed grass, more geraniums, columbine, fleabane, celandine.


Azaleas all bloom at about the same time.

Adult Indigo Bunting owns blue.

Maturing Bunting just developing his color.

And some gold as in Goldfinch.

Pearl Crescent in the veggie garden.

Columbine just starting.

Maizie and Kaley harassing the frogs.