June's Opening Number

As if keeping the calendar themselves, our rhododendrons really started blooming today, with blossoms appearing even on bushes that didn't flower a year ago.

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In the back garden, the low white globe alliums joined their taller purple cousins in blooming, the two of them sort of pre-echoing the big flashy blossoms of the Fourth of July fireworks displays to come in just over a month.

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Purple globe allium, with pink columbine--and of course, oregano--in the background.

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The pink columbine's becoming quite lovely as its blossoms seem to inflate and fill out.


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Pink seems to be a bit of a theme, actually, with the portulaca putting in its Two Cents.

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One of the best things about portulaca, however, is the great range of color they bring to the borders. Another plant threw out twin magenta blossoms, but no good pictures of them were managed...

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Well, when I first discovered this little fellow on my arm this evening, at first I found myself humming that inchworm song...but now I've come in and Googled the winter moth, a relatively new and most unwelcome washashore to Cape Cod...and this indeed is the winter moth caterpillar (operophtera brumata) expected to do much defoliation this year. The moths had a bit of a flourish last December, when temperatures were so mild...I remember them flying around the Christmas lights. So far, their territory is spreading faster than prevention/eradication can keep up with them.

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Just outside the kitchen door, the pink primrose which came to me as a gift this winter has decided to bloom again, what with it being June and all.

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A tufted titmouse sings, perhaps about his new family of nestlings, from a tall branch above the pond.

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Remember my confusion a while back about not knowing if the pineapple lilies were going to have foliage that was identical to the daylilies? Ha ha...no chance of that! Three of these have emerged in the last few days, and couldn't look more different than daylilies if they tried.


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The spotted leaves make them seem a bit alien. They'll be fun to study as the days go by.