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.