Party Weekend.

7-7-16 VERMONT: It’s hot again after a nippy few days, relatively nippy, for July. Again we’re hoping for rain, and we might get some today. The Birthday/Anniversary/Block party is Saturday, that’s when we’ll probably get the rain.

I have been tidying, pruning, weeding and watering. In anticipation of maybe getting rain, I shoveled out the culvert this morning. The rest of the week will be for party set-up.

Val’s family arrives today to help with arrangements and vacation for a few days. Alison’s group comes on Saturday and stragglers at any time.

New blooms: rhododendron, hydrangea, garden yarrow, pickerel weed.


Rosebay rhododendron native to the eastern states.

This filipendula opens before the others and has a different flower shape. I will show the others next week when they bloom.

Pink yarrow contrasts with the purple campanula. The common white yarrow has been blooming in the pasture for a few weeks.

The Big Weekend.

7-4-16 VERMONT: We got a big rain, 1.1 inches, on the first, the night Anna and Erin arrived for their Vermont weekend. There was lightning and thunder, wind and a rainbow making it a full Monty for a T-storm. The weather has since been sunny, windy and cool.

On the second we all, dogs included, did the Gile Mountain hike after the girls went to the Norwich Farmers Market and before one of them got a tat in WRJ. Dinner was at Middlebrook restaurant and rather disappointing. They headed back to the Metro area on the third. We ran chores that afternoon and are doing nothing on the Fourth.

New blooms: first hosta, Shasta daisy, first filipendula.


As the rain was passing to the east, we got a surprise.

Milkweed rampant in the pasture, smells sweet, has butterflies on the flowers, but no Monarch caterpillars on the leaves.

Barn swallow nesting in the barn has at least two chicks.

Taking a break from the demands of parenthood.

Anna and Erin were here for their second annual Fourth in Thetford.

We all did the Gile Mountain hike.

Mt. Ascutney on the horizon from the top of the tower atop Gile.

July Begins.

6-30-16 VERMONT: The yellow lady slippers look fine, but four of the five showy lady slippers are wilted, but I’m watering and hoping for survival. I’ve continued weeding and watering the new plants. We did get some rain, 0.15 inches, the night before last, and might get some more tomorrow.

I bought three more coneflowers today from Browns, Echinacea purpurea ‘Purple Emperor’, and planted them in a hole in the upper north terrace bed. Otherwise more of the usual chores.

 New blooms: astilbe.


The sun just rising above the cloud bank.

Peonies make June flowery. They are beautiful in bloom and an attractive shrub before and after the blooms.

The showy Lady slipper after transplanting, fenced and staked.

Pink astilbe on the pond bank in a mist of bedstraw.

Lady Slippers Move In.

6-28-16 VERMONT: Melissa brought us two clusters of lady’s slippers, three stalks of yellow ones, Cypripedium pariflorum, and five stalks of showy lady slippers, Cypripedium reginae. These are the two varieties that we commonly see here in Zone 4. Melissa’s are all purchased from nurseries and not taken from the wild, which is a no-no. She has been very successful at getting them to thrive and spread in her garden.

I dug two ‘bathtubs’ on the edge of the pond and filled them with a mix of compost, chopped, decomposed leaves, some wood ashes and some peat moss and planted them in what are sunny spots. They prefer shade except in the northern parts of their range where we are. These two like a neutral pH, while others prefer an alkaline media. The yellow ones came with more roots and look better already. The showy variety will need more frequent watering.

New blooms: daylily, summersweet shrub.


First native daylily, some hybrid dallies have been open earlier. These native dayllies start at he beginning of July and last all month.

Valerian is a biennial herb with a pungent sweet aroma. If you're working around them for a while it's a little intoxicating. It's happy in the shade.

Goat's beard is another shade lover. I don't get the name.

Peony. This one is our only 'single'.

Campanula is a reliable perennial and slowly spreads in it's neighborhood.

The Butterfly Has a Shoe Fetish.

6-26-16 VERMONT: We’re back in summer with near 90° today. Yesterday we went to friends Melissa and Dick’s house to get perennials to transplant. They are moving to the Durham, NH area and leaving her beautiful gardens behind. Melissa has a striking collections of unusual perennials in her shade garden, including lady’s slippers of both local varieties. We took and transplanted some lupin, anemones, toad lily and primrose. Some of it was essentially bare rooted so will need lots of water when it’s this hot.

Add to that a little more snipping and pulling, and your have a day in the garden. Today I was going to relax, but after watering all the new plantings and transplants, and finding a few misplaced volunteers that I moved, it ended up as a busy day.

We walked around the pasture this morning, and a butterfly fixated on my feet. It spent 10 minutes tasting the top of my shoe, both shoes actually. These are old shoes reserved for gardening only, but the butterfly’s fixation made me wonder if it was getting sugar from my sweat-soaked shoes. Am I diabetic? The fabric it was suckling on is a synthetic that would have no natural attraction for an insect I suppose.

New blooms: valerian, foxglove, campanula, red spirea, yarrow.


Great Spangled Fritillary sucking something out of my shoe.

Now he's trying the other foot.

We call these roses 'fence roses.'

Barns, pond and fence roses.

These yellow flag iris hanging out by the barn are volunteers. They are 4-5 feet tall and not to be trifled with. Last summer they were mowed to the ground, but here they are.

New Plants.

6-23-16 VERMONT: Yesterday was so cold, after so hot earlier in the week, that we had a fire in the evening. It did finally rain, a quarter inch, yesterday morning, and in the afternoon, I did more planting. At the top of the new wall bed, I planted two Echinacea purpurea ‘Ruby Star’ and two ‘Kim’s Knee High’ in the rock garden, two hollyhocks, Alcea rugosa ‘Blacknight’ and ‘Spotlight Radiant Rose’ in the new wall bed top, and a Liatris spicata ‘Kolold’ in the rock garden.

Today was a lot warmer. I planted five lupin, three L. polyphyllus ‘Tutti Frutti Hybrids’ and two without name tags. I put them next to the rock formation behind the pond where I had put other lupins in the past. I dug out the nice soil that was there and replaced it with road sand/gravel. If that sounds odd, it’s because lupins are legumes, they take nitrogen out of the air so they don’t need fertilizer. The poor quality soil gives them an edge because it reduces competition from weeds and other plants.

I also did a lot of weeding and some pruning, but there’s lots of both still to do.

New blooms: fever few, Russian sage, ninebark diablo, lychnis, Bradbury monarda.


Lucy's favorite.

I saw four painted turtles at the same time today. I had thought there were only two in the pond.

The Shovels Are Out.

6-21-16 VERMONT: Tonight is actually cool, in the sixties, after a pleasant day. Yesterday was too hot and too humid, but a front went through during the night, cooled things off and gave us a drop of much needed rain.

The grass is burnt, and I cancelled the mowing for this week. The pond is down two inches.

Yesterday I did some weeding in the late afternoon when it had cooled. Today I planted the catalpa tree, Catalpa speciosa, that we bought from Browns on the last trip. I put it in the southeast corner of the yard. I also got a bunch of perennials and, so far, planted a toad lily, Tricyrtis macropoda, and a centaurea, Centaurea montana, in the bed by the new French doors. I have some lupin, coneflower and hollyhock to plant tomorrow.

New blooms: rhubarb, trascantia, water lily.


Cliché.

Common Ringlet. These butterflies are hard to catch because they don't sit still for long.

Water lily.

Painted turtle catchin' some rays.