More Weeding and Pruning.

9-9-10 SHORT HILLS: It’s official—we’re in a drought. We had in NJ a very hot, very dry summer after a dry spring. The meterologists are saying that this was the hottest summer on record, I guess they mean the USA. We just finished another two hot days but are now feeling more like autumn. We did get a little rain the other night.

I have continued to catch up on chores, doing weeding and pruning. There have been a number of shrubs with dead branches, and I think I got them all trimmed. There’s a car load of cuttings and weedings for the dump tomorrow. We brought all the house plants back inside today after their summer off. They all look great. Bringing them in early gives them a chance to adjust to the dryer inside environment before the heat goes on in another month of so.

When I do a lot of pruning, I always feel that I’m taking away more and more dead material and leaving less and less. But then I remind myself that the ninety-five percent of plants that don’t need pruning have all grown over the course of the season for what is certainly a net gain of vegetation.


Talk about your hard workers. The roses have been doing it since early spring and are still covered with buds.