6-2-21 SHORT HILLS: We got back yesterday to a warmer place than we left, awash in green growth. There were several branches down on the lawn, so there had been a significant storm. The rain gauge had 3.25 inches, much more than we had in VT.
Judy and I cleaned up most of the fallen debris, and I gave the house plants a Miracle-Gro feeding today. They were looking hungry. There is much weeding and pruning to do.
New blooms: lilac, roses, peony, tree peony, red spirea, Stewartia, Japanese snow bells, kousa dogwood, holly, purple rhododendron, St. John’s wort.
Emblematic of June, the peony.
A similar look, the Tree Peony, related to it's peony cousin above.
The flowers are bigger and bolder than earlier in the spring, like this rhododendron.
Another dogwood, the kousa or Japanese dogwood has striking flowers.
Stewartia, a small tree, has lots of these flowers, marked with one red-dotted petal. Maybe it's a signal to the pollinators.
St. John's wort,
Hypericum perforatum, is technically a shrub, but dies back every winter and re-grows from the gound every spring.
Rose bud. I think the roses are prettiest at this stage with the promise of the flower to come.
Although the flower is nice too.
Not as showy, holly tree flowers are either male or female on male or female trees. These are the female flowers. Those green nodules become the red berries, the ones without petals are already fertilized.
The male holly flowers. The pollinators need to visit the male trees and then the female tree. That seems complicated, but our yard is filled with holly volunteers so the system works.
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