Hot Time.

5-30-13 VERMONT: Today was hot, upper eighties, what a contrast with yesterday. I went to Brown’s Nursery this morning for new stock to fill the holes left by winterkill. As usual you pick what looks healthy and works in the spot you need to fill, but not always what you had anticipated for that particular spot. I moved the salvia that I had planted last week to a better spot by the new mudroom. The herbs, by the way, all seem fine except for the basil which has some brown leaves, but seems to be alive and growing.

I planted two new hybrid daylilies, Hemerocallis ‘Prairie Wildfire’ and ‘Purple Wink’ in the daylily bed, two Goat’s Beard, Aruncus dioicus in the shade garden, two hollyhocks, Alcea rugosa ‘Halo Blush’ and ‘Halo Cerise’, one Delphinium ‘Guardian Blue’ and one foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, ‘Polkadot Polly’ to the bed below the deck. I also pulled more of that unknown invasive out and transplanted some cranesbill that came out with the invader. I put another Digitalis ‘Candy Mountain’ in the rock garden and added two Phlox paniculata, ‘Robert Poore’ and ‘Blue Paradise’ to the bed by the new French doors. Lastly, I put two Saponaria officinalis, soapwort, out front near the road in hopes that they will spread.

I also did a bit of weeding and pruning of course, and, Judy, I was careful in the heat.

New blooms: star flower, speedwell, red primrose.


Star flower, a shy, delicate denizen of the forest floor.