Rain Continues.

6-30-20 VERMONT: I know I posted yesterday, but we have had more rain, on and off, all day and a total of 2.3 inches last time I looked. I have pulled the boat up on the bank and poured the water out of it four times in the past few days. I’m so relieved we got this good soaking and hope this indicates a changing precip pattern.

New blooms: native daylily.

First daylily of the season, if peonies are the key flower for June, daylilies are for July.

Rain At Last.

6-29-20 VERMONT: It’s pouring. It started yesterday afternoon with a T-storm with a lot of electricity that totally panicked Kaley and Judy, Kaley was worse. That storm delivered 0.7 inches, over night there was 0.4 more, today another 0.75 and it’s been raining again for an hour. We’ll get at least 2 inches. The big pond is full and draining. The new pond level is higher, but there is not much runoff from the hill above the pond as yet. The fields and woods are so dry that they are soaking up all the rain. I say let it continue for a week. I have emptied the boat three times so far.

Alison and Dan were here for the weekend. We ate on the deck until things got wet. After many complaints about the mattress in the main guest room, Judy and I went shopping yesterday and got a newer, wider, bigger, thicker, softer mattress and boxspring to silence all the complainers. They arrive on Wednesday.

Before the rain, I spent most of my time watering, weeding, staking, etc. in the beds. I planted some ferns to the east of the new pond where it used to be all ferns before the construction. I hope to make it all ferns again. I got the ferns from the rock ledge face next to that pond. I stripped all the vegetation off of one section of the ledge, it’s like peeling an orange, and replanted the ferns that came off, and I will do more of them.

New blooms: rosebay rhododendron, diablo ninebark bush, water lily, fever few, astilbe, Maltese cross, valerian, bind weed.

My fav peonies is a stare down with the camera.

Caught by the Game Cam-several ravens/crows and a turkey, possibly in a dispute.

This almost white bird is a goldfinch [with a sunflower seed], one of a few, usual color of the birds below.

A pair of goldfinches.

Water lilies, wadda ya think, Claude?

Close up water lily.

Astilbe on the bank.

Fever few.

A Little Night Rain.

6-24-20 VERMONT: We woke up this morning to rain. Finally, some rain, it ended early afternoon and delivered 0.3 inches. We still need much more.

I have mostly been doing watering and a bit of weeding, but when things are this dry, I spend the day watering to get all the bed wet.

The new pond is down at least a foot while the old pond is only about an inch low. We started eating Sun Sugar tomatoes.

New blooms: bridal wreath spirea, red spirea, goats beard, trascantia, Russian sage, sweet William, Indian paint brush.

My favorite peony, less is more.

Reflections.

Luna Moth during the day, he works the night shift and is off now. Check out the frilled antennae.

Goats beard is happiest in shade.

Sweet William is another dianthus.

Roses along the fence will keep flowering all summer.

Hotter and Dryer.

6-19-20 VERMONT: The weather is hot again, but still very dry. The grass is starting to brown in spots, and I have been watering every day, and weeding also. The weeds don’t care if it’s hot or cold, wet or dry, they thrive anywhere.

I did more planting after a visit to Gardner Supply. I added a milkweed, Asclepias tuberosa, to the lower wall bed, Himalayan fleeceflower, Persicaria affinis ‘Superba’, and Lobelia cardinalis ‘New Moon Maroon’ to the upper wall bed. I put a bee balm, Monarda fistulosa ‘Clare Grace’ in the east old-chimney bed and two more primrose, Primula denticulata, in the new brook along with a boneset, Eupatorium perfoliatum. I also planted those two red oaks, Quercus rubra, near the new pond. That swampy area has almost dried up, finally.

New blooms: peony, showy lady slipper, lady’s mantle, fence roses, baptisia, dianthus, bearded iris, knapweed, purple avens.

Peony, the Prom Queen of flowers.

Bearded Iris, again, three sets of three petals-upright, dependent and horizontal. The pollinator dives into the nectar in the well between the lower and middle sets of petals, where the beard is.

Knapweed, cousin to bachelor buttons.

Siberian Iris, same design as above, the white and yellow striped area guides the pollinator to a soft landing.

Showy Lady Slipper, another candidate for Prom Queen.

On the terrace, a mix of day lily, columbine and bleeding heart.

New Plants.

6-13-20 VERMONT: One week from the Summer Solstice and it’s in the mid-fifties and breezy, feeling like October. We have had a little rain, very little. The new pond is down about a foot, but the swampy area is still wet.

There is a turtle in the new pond, I can’t tell if he/she migrated from the old pond or is a new arrival. I found the crawfish trap that I made several years ago in the basement, dusted it off, dropped in a hot dog for bait and threw it in the old pond one recent evening. In the morning it had about fifty ‘bugs’ that I poured into a bucket of pond water, spilling about half of them on pride rock by accident. These last went back in the old pond, and the ones in the bucket are colonizing the new pond. The new pond also has thousands of tadpoles and baby frogs.

I repaired an outdoor rocking chair and end table.

After a trip to Brown’s Nursery, I planted several perennials—in the new brook, two Primula sieboldii, one Lobelia siphilitica, ‘Great Blue’, and one Marsh marigold, Caltha pallustris, in the wall beds, two Astilbe, ‘Mighty Red Quinn’ and ‘Mighty Chocolate Cherry’, one Liatris spicata, ‘Blazing Star’ Gayfeather, and two Astrantia major, ‘Ruby Cloud’. I planted a small horse chestnut, Aesculus hippocastanum, at the east end of the new dam and have two red oaks, Quercus rubra, to put somewheres around the new pond. The trees are all small, a size I can handle. I was thinking about having the nursery plant larger specimens, but they are backed up with work for the next two months.

New blooms: yellow flag iris, Asian lilac, weigela, bishops weed, anemone, Wentworth viburnum, Siberian iris, terrace roses, rosa rugosa, chives, thyme, burning bush, lupin.

I trapped a bunch of crawfish from the old pond for colonization of the new pond. While emptying them from the trap to a bucket of water, I spilled a some out of the trap. Judy took this picture of them when I was putting them back in the pond.

Wentworth viburnum. The flower looks like the Double-File viburnum flower, but the leaves are very different. See the May 5, 2020 post for the DFV.

Yellow flag iris, the lowest three, drooping petals and the middle three horizontal petals are full sized, but the top three, upright petals are vestigial.

Siberian iris. Compare the three large, upright petals with the flag iris above. The pollinators enter where the yellow markings lead them between the lower two rows of petals.

Water lily pads are surfacing and one frog has re-created a cliché.

Iris and Primrose at the old pond with the dam of the new pond in back in the sun.

Bally and the Woodchucks.

6-7-20 VERMONT: Today was cold after a front came through last night, delivering a series of showers, but only gave us about a tenth of an inch. It was enough so I didn’t water today, but weeded some flower beds, pulling out violets.

Violets are invasive in the flower beds, I like them, especially in the spring when they bloom, but they need to be controlled. I transplanted them to the new brook between the ponds.

Bally the border collie has been going crazy about woodchucks under the barn and managed to get a cut near his eye, probably from metal flashing in the hole he dug, and needed an ER visit on Saturday. Now he seems to have lost interest, so maybe the woodchucks moved on. I closed up the hole under the barn.

I have been posting bird pix on Twitter for Black Birding Week and have picked up new followers.

New blooms: white flag iris, white clover, double file viburnum, meadow rue, blue-eyed grass, creeping speedwell, hybrid daylily, Solomon seal, bachelor button, Indian paint brush, cranesbill geranium, bunch berry.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, three of them have been flitting around for a week or so.

Centaurea, Bachelor Button, we also have it in blue.

Eastern Phoebe, a fly catcher. Go Phoebe.

First Hybrid Daylily is this spidery-leaved, apricot early bird. The native daylilies start Judy 1.

The azaleas actually have four colors in this mix-orange, salmon, pink and magenta.

Striped bird.

Friendly Probole Moth is about an inch wide. It flew out of the garage when I opened the door.

White Flag Iris, the first this year. That pointy thing is the next flower on this stem. The petals are arrayed in threes.

Cold Wave.

6-2-20 VERMONT: The heat wave ended with some very cold weather. We have the heat back on in the house, the nights have been in the forties and this morning at sunrise, when the dogs went out, it was 35°. Mist was rising off the pond because the pond was warmer than the air. By afternoon we were in the sixties. There have been daily showers, but little accumulation. We got enough rain so that I didn’t need to water.

On the weekend, I had help from Cedar, who brought me wheelbarrows full of dirt from the pasture to finish the ramps on either side of the bridge. Cedar’s father Scott finished the work on the barn and barn drainage. I bought sod from Home Depot to cover the ramps and prevent erosion, and it all looks pretty good. Today I pruned roses, removing deadfall and invasive branches—a hateful task, very hard to not get stabbed by the thorns. It’s good to do it on a cold day, like today, because one has heavier clothes and gloves on, which helps with the sticking. I also repaired the bench out in the pasture that had a broken slat.

I planted two Dianthus from Home Depot that I got when I bought the sod and planted them both in the east bed below the deck. One is a Sweet William, Dianthus barbatus, Barbarini ‘Red’, and the other is Dianthus x ‘Neon Star’.

There’s trouble in paradise—the dogs have dug holes in flower beds doing some damage and making me work to fill the holes. And one of the lawn mowing crew weed whacked a bed of lupin—so annoying.

New blooms: columbine, yellow lamium, red clover, bane berry, Siebold viburnum, nannyberry viburnum, golden Alexander, flea bane, false Solomon seal, star flower.

Bally after a swim.

Early morning mist on the pond.

The bridge with ramps and sod, and hose to keep the sod wet.

Brady has arrived for his summer vaca. His mom, Janet, says that he's 37, a very old horse.

Gus in the dandelions, at 12, he's pretty old too.

Judy's pumpkin cart with a basket of flowers in front of the azaleas about to open.