More Rain, More Plantings.

8-7-23 VERMONT: Frequent rains continue here with another 1.55 inches and more today. It’s been cool, and today, cold with afternoon temps in the fifties.

Alison and Dan are visiting. We went to Saap in Randolph a few nights ago and last night saw ‘Oppenheimer’ at the Nugget. Tonight we’re eating here and might grill if the rain stops. 

I planted another yarrow, Achillea millefolium “Red’, two more lilies, L. orientale ‘Baferrari’ and ‘Casa Blanca’ on the pond bank with the others previously planted. I brought home the magnolia, M. soulangiana, ‘Betty’ for the area across the bridge near the new maples. Getting it to the site will be an issue with all the soggy areas. The root ball probably weighs 300 pounds. 

A kingfisher has been here every day getting fish from the pond. Butterflies, bees, wasps, and hummingbirds have been using the milkweed, bee balm and echinacea.

New blooms: white turtlehead, first aster.

Kingfisher, immature, will loose most or all of the rusty feathers when grown up.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. You can see all six legs, two antennae, tongue, four wings oin this pose.

Red Admiral working echinacea.

Hybrid lily 'Muscadet', smells gorgeous too.

First aster growing with phlox. The aster appeared almost to the day that the last daylily bloomed.

White turtlehead is growing in the sun and appears months before the pink turtlehead that is growing in the shade.

Last Third of the Summer.

8-1-23 VERMONT: Today it has cooled off in the evening, going down to the upper forties. It was a beautiful day, smoke free and no rain. We have had lots of rain—1.55 inches in the last week and almost 12 inches in July—a record. 

I’ve bought a lot of stuff and started planting. I put two yarrow on the pond bank by the lambs ears, Achillea millefolium ‘ Pomegranate’ and ‘Red’, I got seven roses for the corner of the bank that we covered to kill the goldenrod, two Peach Lemonade, Rosa ‘Radpastel’, Lotty's Love, Rosa rugosa, Snow Pavement Rose, R. ‘Schneekoppe’, Purple Pavement Rose, R. ‘Rotesmeer’, Rosa Sunny Knockout. Two lilies, Lilium Oriental Muscadet and Baferrari, will go on the bank where thing need some extra interest at this point. And wait for it—a red Japanese maple, Acer palmatum ‘Bloodgood’ on the bank near the drain. Most of them are waiting to be planted.

New blooms: pickerel weed, cup plant.

Another hybrid daylily.

Echinacea attracts all the pollinators.

Goldfinches have been here all summer, sporting vivid color.

Cup plant is a big, tall spreader. I had pulled it out of this bed because it was too aggressive, but this one cropped up this year. Notice where the opposite leaves meet at the stem and form a cup, hence the name. The cup holds rainwater for the pollinators, I don't think the plant uses it.

Back to VT.

7-26-23 VERMONT: We had a pretty easy trip back to VT with all the documentation to complete the purchase of Judy’s new Subaru, which we did on Monday. She had to sign her name at least 50 times. The car goes back tomorrow for undercoating.

We still have problems with the mail being forwarded from NJ, and so we are switching to all on line billing.

We are getting our second dry day in a row, but it looks like a big storm coming on Thursday.

Hillary was here today and did a lot of weeding. The biofilm on the pond is much reduced since I’ve been liming the swamp between the ponds. 

The game cams caught the usual deer and turkeys, both with youngsters. A neighbor saw a moose on the road about a mile from here. 

New blooms: tree hydrangea, helenium, butterfly bush, Indian pipe.

Moose in the 'hood.

Turkeys with chicks.

Frolicking fawn.

Mergansers dropped in on a misty morning.

Cedar waxwing looking very sleek in the willow tree.

Hummingbird tasting bee balm.

Echinacea, phlox and astilbe.

Hosta in front of teh new house.

NJ Visit.

7-20-23 SHORT HILLS: We’re back in NJ for a short visit to collect the title to Judy’s car for the trade in on her birthday present, a Subaru Wilderness. We also found the title for my car and got the overdue registration on my car updated. 

We had dinner with Lynn and Bill last night, Alan was here for dinner tonight and tomorrow we meet Bebe and Ronny for dinner—very busy. 

I adjusted the water sprinklers because the yard was a bit too wet, ordered some meds from the pharmacy. 

The yard looks good. Nothing in trouble except a bit of the new grass where trees came down. The hydrangeas have rebounded nicely from the drought last year, but only one has a flower—the tree hydrangea is in bloom. 

In bloom: red spirea, peace lily, southern magnolia, rose-of-Sharon, tree hydrangea, hydrangea. 

Southern Magnolia has been blooming for over a month.

Rose-of-Sharon will bloom until mid-September.

The indoor plants are thriving outside. This peace lily, and the others, are busy flowering.

Mid-Summer.

7-18-23 VERMONT: Since the last post, we’ve had 0.95 inches of rain, and it’s been raining for two hours. This very, very wet summer continues to be very, very wet. 

Woodstock, home to the Woodstock Inn and a Disney-esque downtown, was nearly deserted when we visited with Val and Maggie on Sunday, they were here for the weekend. Turns out Woodstock’s water main was disrupted in the big storm, and they have no water, the Inn is empty, the usually bustling town is mostly empty, all the restaurants are closed. No water was no problem for clothes shopping it seems.

The biofilm on the pond is clearing, maybe it washed away or maybe the lime [CaCO3] on the pond or the pond drainage area has helped. All those fish I put in the ponds are in there somewhere. We haven’t seen any of them, live or dead floaters. The waterfall has been flowing for a few weeks. The clarity of the little pond is excellent, we can see the bottom from the bank. 

While we are not so happy with the daily rain, the gardens love it. Plants are big and bushy and spreading. Flowers are opening early. The terrace has thyme, ajuga, and dianthus planted between the pavers, and they’re all spreading widely. The mosquitos are doing well also.

The delphinium were bent and broken by the storms so I cut a bunch of the stalks for inside. They were beautiful but shed petals immediately and copiously.

New blooms: echinacea, more phlox, magenta bee balm, rocket ligularia.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Asclepias incarnata, swamp milkweed.

Two Fritillaries on milkweed, aharing with a wasp.

More Fritillaries.

Delphinium are not house broken.

Nice color on these short-stemmed bee balm.

Big Rain.

7-14-23 VERMONT: The big rainstorm from Monday caused severe damage and flooding many places in the state and the clean-up will take a lot of time and money. We had virtually no problems. 

Last night there was another storm, with lightning and wind, and tornado warnings that gave us another 0.5 inches of rain. The big storm dumped 4.65 inches on us. The forecast warns of possible T-storms everyday.

The area between the new, upper dam and the big pond is a swamp that gets swampier with each rain. It all drains into the big pond, which has had a layer of cloudy stuff on the surface. Judy did some searching on line and identified it as a biofilm. The film is not toxic or harmful, just unsightly. Nobody seems to have a clear cure, but barley straw pellets and lime are recommended. I have done both. 

The barley straw is an oxidizer that fights algae, and the lime is to raise the pH of the water. A lot of lime, 80 pounds, hasn’t changed the pH more than a tweak, at most. I think the swamp drainage might be a factor, so I am liming those areas. We’ll see.

New blooms: lambs ears, summer azalea, milkweed, evening primrose, phlox, blue-flowered hosta, hybrid daylilies.

Hybrid daylily. How about that color!

Or this color.

Here's the whole bed.

Asclepeas incarnata, a milkweed, on the pond bank, beloved of all insects, especially butterflies, and of the butterflies, especially the monarchs. Monarch larva are usually all over these plants eating the leaves. I haven't seen any monarchs yet this year.

A monarda, bee balm, with a gorgeous color. I planted it last year and apparently didn't realise how short it is, it might need a different spot, althpouigh it seems happy.

Torrential Rain and Flooding.

7-10-23 VERMONT: It’s been raining hard for about 24 hrs, not so bad here in our neighborhood as other towns. Our little, lazy brook has turned into a huge monster that ate our road. We have only a damp basement. 

The ponds are overflowing of course, the waterfall looks like something from Iceland. The rain will continue at least until tomorrow. 

Our little brook...

Meets our road! [videos taken by Diana Wright]