Sunny and Warm.

6-27-11 VERMONT: It actually did rain again last night, but only a trace accumulation. Today was beautiful and summery. I was outside all day. The corn looks fine, and I went ahead, a bit early, and thinned them down to one stalk per hill. All the tomatoes are growing nicely, but not much fruit yet, the nights may be too cool.

I planted the new day lilies, ‘Grandmothers Love’, ‘Blueberry Breakfast’, ‘Pale Peach’, and ‘Summer Wine’ in the day lily bed. The bed is next to an old wall and digging there means pulling out rocks. The rocks end up as a bed border. I also planted two Hepatica americana between pavers on the terrace. I cleaned up the spot where the maple tree came down, graded the area and put down some sod, that I had banked last year, around the remaining maple roots. I’ll seed the rest.

New blooms: ‘Purple Rain’ salvia.


Have you seen this guy at your feeder?

Or this one?

Probably not. They are from Botswana, part of Ken and Carol's pix from their recent safari. They and other pix are available at the web site below. See lions, leopards, jaguars, hyenas, hippos, giraffes, zebras, cape buffalo, lots of antelopes, elephants, spectacular birds and more. The picture quality is excellent.
http://kenweg.smugmug.com/Nature/Bowswana-2011/17731916_RwP2cZ#1353700019_Smd9t59

The Rain Stopped.

6-26-11 VERMONT: So far today, no rain. There was another 0.2 inches in the gauge this morning. The fog and clouds gradually cleared this afternoon. I have been splitting a half-dozen logs a day and am about half done with the pile.

We went to Cider Hill Gardens in Windsor, VT today. The stock is beautifully displayed in their own gardens, and they have more in those gardens than they have for sale. We bought four hybrid day lilies to add to the day lily garden, a couple hepatica and an interesting pink-orange geranium. It's worth a visit even if you’re not in the market for plants. They also have a gallery with, what else, garden art.

In an attempt to get some wild sedum to bloom, I alkalised half the bed near the propane tank and acidified the other half to see if pH change has an effect.

Last night Judy [and I] gave a dinner party for three couples on our road, Ken and Jane, Donna and Bruce, and Katie and Andy. Many important issues were discussed at length, and they actually stayed until 10 PM.

New blooms: campanula.


Thyme taking over the terrace.

Roses at their peak. They continue to bloom all summer, but not in such profusion.

Plenty of Puddles.

6-24-11 VERMONT: Yesterday it rained most of the day, and I was outside for only a few minutes between showers. I split a few logs and emptied the rain water out the boat. Today the rain stopped, except for an occasional drizzle in late morning, and I got most of the flower beds weeded and pruned most of the shrubs around the house. I cleaned out the culvert again, staked a few plants, cleaned up the trimmings before the rain started again. So far we have had about 1.6 inches, but more is falling.

It has been cold, foggy, clammy, wet, overcast, soggy and, of course, rainy. I was working in Wellingtons, a jacket, heavy shirt to stay warm. We have had fires the last two nights.

New blooms: summer sweet, more spirea, feverfew.


Luna Moth. A bit bedraggled, but still impressive. Moths rest with wings spread, butterflies with wings together and upright. Moths have fuzzy antennae as seen here in yellow.

Abracadabra, No More Tree.

6-22-11 VERMONT: After a few dry days, it started raining about noon today and hasn’t stopped, no wind, no lightening or thunder, just rain—so unusual.

Yesterday Chippers was here and made the downed maple vanish. Some splittable wood was cut and stacked by the garage for me to split. but nothing too gnarly or large. All the smaller branches were chipped and the big parts of the trunk and stump were left on big pruning pile in the woods. I used to burn that pile every year or so when the ground was snow covered, but I have decided to let it all decompose on its own, a greener approach. The pile is so big now that I may have to rethink that plan. Some of the chips went on a wet spot behind the big barn. I still have to regrade around the hole where the stump was.

Otherwise, it’s been more of the same, weeding and pruning.

New blooms: rhododendron, first hosta, tiarella.


June favorite, Peony.

Another June fav, yellow flag iris.

Busy Days.

6-19-11 VERMONT: Yesterday we had more hail, this was marble-sized, bigger than the pea-sized from a few days ago. Today was a high pressure, clear blue sky, cool day with a nice breeze. Tonight is jacket or sweater cool. The rain has dumped another 0.2 inches on us.

Neighbor Melissa dropped off a perennial foxglove yesterday which went into one of the holes in the gardens. She declined a columbine or bleeding heart in return. Yesterday, otherwise was more W & P, catching up with invaders and runaways.

The day before yesterday I worked on the downed maple cutting and pulling one section of roots using chainsaw, sabersaw, shovel, pick and bar.

Today I took down two small trees that had grown near and encroached on the dawn redwood. One was an apple, and I saved some firewood. Before that I weeded the terrace and old stone steps.

New blooms: [forgot to mention last post—clover, vetch, cinquefoil, yarrow] peony, knapweed.


I was up early the other morning and caught this sunrise over Mt. Moosilauke.

Pink Knapweed, Centaurea dealbata 'Rosea'. Looks like its relative, Bachelor Button.

Evening Grossbeak. The grossbeak part of the name makes sense.

Good News, Bad News.

6-16-11 VERMONT: We both came up yesterday, struggling in an unending odyssey of construction delays and lane closures, it must be summer. When we got here, we found the two trees blown over by a viscious T-storm last week. Now we haven’t had house damage, or a tornado, but this makes about a half dozen trees we have lost in the past few years.

One tree, an ash, fell from across the road into our driveway, taking out about a quarter of a big honeysuckle bush. Our neighbor, Steve, had cleared the ash tree in the driveway and told us about the maple. It was a red maple, usually with gorgeous fall color, growing on a rock ledge behind the pond. It glanced an even more important maple tree as it fell, as well as a big pine, took out a bench, and landed in the flower beds behind the pond. I got the chain saw started and trimmed the tops of all the branches reaching the pond and the flower beds, cleared the pine branch pinned down by the maple and freed a small maple and a blueberry bush. Back in the woods, I found a downed pine that took out a maple and another pine as it fell.

Mark from Chippers came by today to discuss cutting the maple up, chipping debris, leaving wood that I can split for the fireplace and removing the stump. Scheduled for next week.

Otherwise I pruned the honeysuckle, did a bit of weeding, repaired the culvert, and cleaned up the damaged flower beds.

The veggies are doing fine. We have a grape sized tomato that will be full sized in a few weeks. The corn shoots are up. I plant three seeds in each hill. Several have only two shoots, a few only one and one had none. Did they all fail, or did I forget to seed it? I put three seeds in it today for the second time, or first time. The plantings from May are all doing fine. There was 1.95 inches of rain in the gauge.

That included a heavy downpour with hail yesterday as I was finishing the work on the downed maple.

In bloom: Diablo ninebark, lilac, roses, viburnums, stephanandra, cotoneaster, spireas, weigela, lamium-pink, purple and white, columbine, buttercup, daisy, geranium, cranes bill, meadow rue, forget-me-not, iris-siberian, bearded and water, baptisia, rogersia, jacobs ladder, alkanet, thyme, veronica, bleeding heart, centaurea, ground sedum, coreopsis, hesperis, apricot day lily, trascantia, tomato, water lily, lupin, indian paint brush-red and yellow, ladys mantle, valerian, celandine, raspberry, blackberry, jack-in-the-pulpit, bishops weed, solomon seal, rhubarb.


Downed maple missed the important stuff.

Yesterday, on the way to dinner, we had a surprise.

Can you find Chloe 'midst the buttercups? She's black and white.

Soggy June Afternoon.

6-14-11 SHORT HILLS: More W & P this morning, before afternoon rain. This is just a quickie before VT tomorrow.

New blooms: another spirea, st. johns wort.


St. Johns Wort. Only about an inch across, but a pretty one, even in the rain.