Late Summer Begins.

7-31-20 VERMONT: We had a nice rain yesterday evening that delivered 0.65 inches after a few hot, dry days that left the lawn looking brown. The new pond is lower than it has been, and three feet below full. Today is in the sixties.

We had the new house chimney water sealed, and the drainage project continues. I re-built the grill. It’s a Weber kettle grill that we have had since we moved in 30 years ago. The moving parts and grills have been replaced before and again now.

I continue to weed, water and prune and did some new planting. I put a hellebore, Helleborus orientalis ‘Ivory Prince’, and a wintergreen, Gaultheria procumbens, in the bottom layer of the terrace beds at the shadowed, dark end. Two echinacea, E. purpurea ‘Magnus’ and two pulmonaria, P. saccharata, went in the top terrace bed at the sunny end, and a primrose, Primula beesiana, in the new brook.

The echinacea replaced two obedient plants that died. I also pulled some ferns out of the old chimney bed and transplanted them on the banks of the new pond.

New blooms: gooseneck loosestrife, potentilla, Indian pipe, Joe Pye weed, mint.

Two of a trio of Hooded Mergansers that we found on the pond a few mornings ago.

Nicely posing with their reflections. They were diving repeatedly. Fish make up a big part of their diet.

Was it something I said?

Gooseneck Loosestrife opening up, love the name.

Tiger Swallowtail in one of the last daylilies.

Another butterfly, this is a Silver-spotted Skipper. Skippers are a huge family, many are small and unremarkable.

Song Sparrow, I think, one of several birds with brown, spotted breasts, and one that does not use the feeders.

Monarch. Those small lumps on the hind wings indicate that this is a male.

Doe and fawn in the pasture before dawn caught by the game cam.

Rain and a Sunset.

7-24-20 VERMONT: Last evening we had a big rain that followed a couple small showers during the day for a welcome total of 1.75 inches. We need that much every few days.

The blueberries are ripening. I’ve picked a couple of quarts but many of the berries are still green, which is good because they will ripen later to extend the season for a few weeks more. Birds are in the blueberry bushes all the time, but only eat a few. We are getting lots of cherry tomatoes, but the full size ones are just beginning.

Scott has started putting drains in the swampy area below the new dam. We are hoping to make the area dryer next spring. I am re-building the little, side entrance to the small barn intended for geese. We have no geese, but Judy likes how it looks.

Butterflies are everywhere, but not many Monarchs, as yet.

New blooms: rocket ligularia, goldenrod, more phlox.

Aphrodite Fritillary on milkweed, perfect pose.

The blueberries are ripening, and this catbird is stealing one.

Another berry thief, do you know this spotted bird? It's an immature robin.

More phlox with vivid color.

It must be mid-summer if the goldenrod has started to bloom.

Gus walked to the far end of the pasture and back with me and Maizie.

After rain yesterday evening, we had dramatic skies.

Can you see the weathervane on top of the barn cupola?

Cup Plant Transplanted.

7-18-20 VERMONT: July is slipping away. We’re almost a month past the summer solstice and the days will begin to shorten shortly [sorry] and by August 21, the sun will be halfway back to the Equator. Yesterday we had a foretaste of October, it was in the fifties with rain and damp—I built a fire. Today it’s in the 90’s. We had two rainy days and got a total of 1.45 inches, but we need ten times that much.

I dug up the roots of that cup plant and transplanted three chunks of them to the north terrace bed, and we’ll see if they survive and re-grow.

Butterflies are everywhere, especially the milkweed, the common, native ones and the garden milkweeds.

I planted two blue star flowers, Amsonia tabernaemontana, one Geum ‘Blazing Sunset’ avens, and one Penstemon digitalis, red beardtongue in place of the cup plant.

New blooms: pickerel weed, phlox, more filipendula.

Black Swallowtail. It's butterfly season.

Nice sunset a few nights ago.

Common Wood Nymph in the pasture.

Water plant-Pickerel weed.

Monarch butterfly on milkweed in the house garden.

White Admiral and friends on milkweed by the pond.

Great Spangled Fritillary.

These hostas are so perfumed that they are covered with bees.

Back in VT.

7-13-20 VERMONT: We’ve been back for a couple of days, catching Anna and Gardner at the end of their week here. Tonight it’s in the sixties, and I’m about to look for a sweater. This summer in VT, after dinner, one either puts on a fan or a sweater.

There’s been a little rain, but not nearly enough. The new pond is quite low now. I have a bunch of chores on my list, but today I cut down one of my big successes, a cup plant, Silphium perfoliatum, that almost ate the garden. This was its third year. Last year it was two feet high and wide, but this year five feet high and wide, crowding out its neighbors. I hate taking down anything happy in its spot, but too big is too big. Maybe I’ll dig up the root system and try it somewhere else.

The pasture is full of wildflowers including black-eyed Susan, Queen Anne’s lace, clovers, vetch, daisies and the butterflies are here. I got decent pix of a few and posted them today. I saw one Monarch when I didn’t have a camera.

New blooms: summer azalea, Shasta daisies, bee balm, evening primrose, delphinium, mallow, fox glove, filipendula, milkweed, meadow rue, hybrid daylily, campanula, oxeye.

Deer caught by the game cam in mid-leap.

Two turkeys, there probably are several chicks in the tall grass. One bird is always on the lookout.

Other wildlife.

Mr. Toad has a home under that step. He's about to set foot on his front porch.

Filipendula looking very frothy.

Mallow is a mid-summer regular.

Aphrodite Fritillary on milkweed along with a bunch of bees and other bugs.

A rare, two-headed Sulfur butterfly.

Marbled Fritillary.

July Heat.

7-9-20 SHORT HILLS: The weather has been very hot and very humid, but there has been some rain to break the drought. I set the sprinklers to a higher level and am watering the copper beech with an extra sprinkler because it had looked droopy. It seems to look better with the big drink.

I did some pruning and weeding this week, and a few minutes outside had me soaked.

The house AC is blowing hot and, hopefully, will get a new charge or repair this afternoon. We are both catching up with health visits that got cancelled in the spring, and go back to VT this weekend.

Southern magnolia flower getting lots of attention. I count ten busy bees and numerous small pollinators.

Deer practically at the front door in the middle of the day.

She retreated into the junipers when I came out with the camera.

Another hydrangea, this one is a tree hydrangea.

Back to the Gardens.

7-5-20 SHORT HILLS: Judy said I didn’t post the best hydrangea picture from yesterday, so I will post it today. Also pictures from Anna in VT of our catalpa tree in bloom. But wait, there’s more—the third day of the souther magnolia flower, a new bud, and the seeds from last fall.

New blooms: catalpa tree [in VT].

Another hydrangea, with pollinator, the flower is different than the usual snowball.

Southern Magnolia, day three for the flower from yesterday. The petals will fall off, but that thing in the middle will make red seeds that will be ripe in the fall.

Southern Magnolia. That big bud is the next flower and will open in a few days.

Southern Magnolia, from last fall, the ripe seeds appearing.

The catalpa tree in VT in bloom, above and below. This is the first year it has bloomed. It will make long seed pods called 'cigars', but I think they look more like string beans.

Holiday Rant.

7-4-20 SHORT HILLS: We came down to NJ to run a bunch of errands here that we couldn’t do last spring because of Covid, mostly medical visits. It’s very hot here, and it doesn’t cool off in the evening. I was out in the yard yesterday—I cut down a dead Asian holly tree, a casualty of the drought. Our copper beech tree looks bad, I’ll soak it.

It’s Independence Day, of course, and we were reflecting on the sorry state of the country. Racial conflict still exists in many areas and regions, less so where we live and less so than the forties and fifties, but so often in law enforcement. We can’t do without police, but it must be possible to weed out the racist officers if municipalities want to.

Equally distressing is the continued presence of the wannabe dictator in the White House, largely responsible for the pathetic response to the Covid pandemic, inarticulate, abusive, divisive, lying, incompetent, traitorous, racist and sexist. The polls are turning against him, but they’re snap shots, not forecasts, but, hopefully, will mean his ouster is going to happen. I look forward to multiple indictments by the SD-NY.

I don’t look forward to a new wave of Covid cases in the later summer and fall after all the parties and crowding this and other weekends. We may be back in VT for the duration of the pandemic.

What do we need? Joe Biden, an effective vaccine and better policing. How do we get them? Give green to the blue team, vote blue—vote by mail to avoid lines and viruses, take the vaccine when it comes out, support police reform.

In bloom: southern magnolia, hypericum, hydrangea, rosebay rhododendron, lamium, spirea.

Hydrangea season.

Blue.

Pink, also violet and white.

Hypericum with large flowers and below...

Hypericum with small flowers. Hypericum is also known as St. John's wort.

Southern Magnolia has, by far, the largest magnolia flowers. They bloom in ones and twos for a long period during the summer.

Southern Magnolia, day one above and day two below, not lacking for pollinators.