Almost June.

5-30-24 VERMONT: We’ve been busy getting ready for the summer. I’m still hobbling around with a cane so we needed help from Scott and from Hillary and Matt. Today is windy and cool, but the wind keeps the blackflies away. We had one inch of rain a few days ago, but things are still dry. 

The screens are in the outer doors. After the screens went in, the weather turned cooler, of course. All the benches are out in the yard. The grass was mowed. The ponds have been treated. The hummingbirds have been using the feeders. The turtle census is at least four. Judy’s pumpkin cart has another broken wheel, another repair job for me.

 

We had dinner at Cloudland Farm a few days ago, and at Murphy’s yesterday. Tonight we go to Laura-Beth’s with other classmates, and tomorrow we have dinner with Andy and Katy.

The game cams are out. There is a mountain lion in the neighborhood that lots of folks have seen, always briefly, and bears roaming the area.

New blooms: pagoda dogwood, Jacobs ladder, baneberry, double-file viburnum, false Solomons seal, lupin, iris, centaurea, blue star.

Centaurea, also called bachelor button, also comes in all blue.

Robin nest next to the house with three chicks about ready to get booted out of the nest.

Red Admiral butterfly, another high ranking insect.

Azaleas, there are four bushes and four colors, orange, salmon, pink, and magenta.

Four painted turtles, two and each end of the rock ledge.

Primrose by the lower pond, we have more extending up the brook to the upper pond. Some we planted, but many are volunteers. They look better every year.

Vermont in Late May.

5-24-24 VERMONT: We came up yesterday through heavy traffic. The trip took six hours and featured multiple jams. It’s in the eighties today, but lots of wind keeps it cool and chases the black flies away. I walked around the house and yard to make a list of the flowers and another list of the chores to be done.

There is one tiger swallowtail butterfly busy in the yard. There are few apple blossoms. Last year there were many, many apples, so the trees are resting this year. The ponds are fairly clear, and I saw one fish and several newts in the big pond. The waterfall is not running, the upper pond is down about one inch. Robins have a nest on top of a lantern by the back door of the old mudroom and are busy feeding the chicks.

In bloom: forget-me-not, trillium, Virginia blue bells, azalea, lamium, violet, ajuga, water avens, honey suckle bush, lilac, Japanese primrose, epimedium, bleeding heart, creeping veronica, geranium, alkanet, dandelion, Siebold viburnum, Mohican viburnum, magnolia, apple, spurge, cowslip, hellebore, wild strawberry, jack-in-the-pulpit, vinca minor, early daylily, blueberry, lily-of-the-valley, tiarela, pulmonaria, sweet woodruff, Columbine, star flower.

Tiger swallowtail on the apple tree.

Bleeding hearts sheltering under the apple tree.

Japanese primrose by the pond.

One of our neighbors, Tina, keeps her two horses here in our pasture. She made this blanket to honor Maizie.

Alison made this bowl with all the holes and the plate under it. Its for rinsing berries.

Peony Parade.

5-22-24 SHORT HILLS: It finally stopped raining, and it’s hot, maybe ninety today. No rain predicted until Thursday, when we might be going to VT.

Saturday we were in the city to see Emmett, and his parents were there also. He is getting bigger and does better tricks now. Sunday we were back in NYC to have brunch with Sara and Jon at Bar Boulud.

It happened this morning, the peonies opened up, both kinds of them—tree peonies [8] and herbaceous peonies [2]. Now that’s what a flower is supposed to look like.   

New blooms: tree peony, herbaceous peony, linden tree.

Herbaceous peony. You may be more used to the double flower, I've always prefered this single format.

Tree peony. Similar but different.

Eight tree peonies, with more buds to open.

Linden tree above and juniper below. The juniper has lots of blue berries if anyone is making gin. The linden is covered with amall flowers, and has perfumed the top of the driveway.

Rainy Daze.

5-16-24 SHORT HILLS: It’s been rainy and cool all week. The plants seem to love it. All the house plants have left the house for the yard this week, and we have tomato plants and herbs outside that will go to VT when we go up for the summer in June. 

We were at The Farm to get the veggies for VT—Sun Gold tomatoes—and basil and rosemary pots. We also got two rain gauges, one for NJ and one for VT. The NJ one registered 0.5 inches in the last two days.

We ate at Lorena’s in Maplewood twice last week. Once with Bebe and Ronnie and the other time with Bette and Lonnie. I had different food each time, and it was all good. Excellent actually. 

Mother’s Day was here, Judy put out an amazing spread for Alison’s and Val’s families, except for Anna and Gardner and Emmett, who were in Wisconsin for Gardner’s sister’s PHD graduation. The day was cool and rainy, so we couldn’t be outside.

New blooms: chokecherry, Catawba rhododendron. 

Purple rhododendron, [Catawba rhodo] flower partly open.

Tree peony about to open. The plant is distinct and different from the usual, herbaceous peony. I wrote about the peonies last post, but I thought I should provide pix.

Peony, herbaceous looks a lot like the tree peony, but the flowers are different.

Itoh peony is a hybrid of the tree peony and herbaceous peony, created by Mr. Itoh. This one is back for its second year, but without flower buds.

The bird house surrounded by flowers. I think I'll use this at the top.

Mid-May.

5-9-24 SHORT HILLS: It was in the mid-eighties yesterday, but today it’s 68° and I’m in a jacket. Tomorrow is predicted to be rainy and in the fifties. 

Those tree seedlings I planted a few weeks ago are in trouble. The red oak that had leaves has been eaten to the ground by deer, and the other one has not opened up. Ten minutes worth of work for nothing. 

Both the peony and tree peony each have several buds on the verge of opening. The Itoh peony has put out a lot of foliage but no flower buds. This is its second year, so it gets a pass on not flowering.

The southern magnolia has dozens of flower buds just starting. The bird house has white spirea opening and lilac just starting. It might be gorgeous next week. 

New blooms: lilac, honeysuckle bush, red spirea.

First lilac cluster to open, the rest will quickly follow.

Wood hyacinth. The leaves have all been eaten by deer before the flowers appeared.

The bird house has lilac in back and white spirea in front might look great next week. The house wren is probably using the house, but I haven't seen her yet this year. She is very furtive.

Flowers Galore.

5-4-24 SHORT HILLS: It’s cold again, I’m wearing a jacket when outside. The race to flower is on, I’m limping around with the camera trying to keep up with all the action. I did cut up some large dead fall, one big enough to make it to the wood pile.

The grass is lush and green and growing with vigor, it hasn’t looked this good for years. It might be due to lots of clover growing in the lawn. In our freedom lawn everything is welcome that is OK with being three inches tall—clover being one of the welcomed plants. Clover is a legume. Legumes are nitrogen fixers, taking nitrogen out of the air for their growth and leaving it in the soil. There’s an old adage, “Where clover grows, grass will follow.” The grass using the nitrogen left by the clover, better than using fertilizer.

New blooms: early rhododendron, double-file viburnum, chestnut, bridal wreath spirea, deutzia, burning bush, leuclothoue. 

One of the azaleas now in bloom.

Another azalea, this one in magenta.

This azalea defines red.

  

Early rhododendron opens weeks before the others.

The chestnut tree has popped open.

Siebold viburnum bushes rival the small trees. That's a redbud tree in the backround.