More Chores.

5-10-12 SHORT HILLS: The weather gods have been acting with civility lately. We have had 0.25 inches of rain each of the last two nights, without electricity and noise, and today another 0.1 inch in a brief afternoon shower.

Yesterday I was able to finish, for the moment, pulling grass tufts out of flower and shrub beds, and plugging them into holes in the lawn. I pulled lamium out of the lawn, and put it into the beds. I also moved a couple more viburnum volunteers to a spot in front of the pool.

Today I did the May fertilizing of shrubs and flowers, mostly ones that looked tired, sad or hungry. After lunch, theirs, not mine, I did some pruning of the walkways. In the afternoon it got quite windy. Every time it does so, we get more dead branches shaken out of trees, all from that disastrous snow storm last October.

New blooms: black chokeberry.

Star-of-Bethlehem, six petals makes it a monocot.

Black Chokeberry gets red berries in the fall, remember them? Four petals on each flower means it's a dicot.