Leaving home and going home can be more interesting with a long driveway and an access to cool trees.

A unique variety of bald cypress greets me when I come home. Taxodium is the oldest living tree genus on the east coast of the United States at approximately 3,500 years and counting (NYT- article summer 2019- tree on the coast of NC)

Soft green foliage alternates with dark bark to create the illusion of an ancient tree.

Closer inspection yields an assortment of thoughts- like I should have planted this closer to my house where I can see it all the time.

Oklahoma redbud blocking the neighbor’s house with its flawless glossy foliage.

Avondale redbud sitting there with its flawless heart-shaped leaves.

Pinus bungeana is the main focal point for my driveway turn around. A little weeding and mulch will touch it up a bit.

Three days of thunder storms gave us the feeling of the earth getting watered, but I bet if you dug in your soil you might find it to still be bone dry below 4”.

​The trees are now glistening with the sun out and leaves still dripping from the rain. THANK GOD for the break in the bone-jarring drought.

...and our nursery has never had more perennials than we have now.

Last night we got some rain then the front escaped with a high following, showing off its characteristic awesome sunset that we get after each storm passes by. I just had to go out and take a picture. Too bad my phone can’t take a wide angle photo. Maybe it can, I just don’t know how to do it.

The rain we got last night came in two downpours with each one getting things wet but not penetrating the rock hard concrete-like soil.

Do not think for one nano-second that any of the rain we got makes one difference in the sad state of the hydrology in Connecticut now- it doesn’t.

​And... if you have planted anything this spring or last fall, you need to water by hand... with a hose.

One woman bought a butterfly bush that began to die within a day or so. When asked, “yes,” she is watering daily. When pressed on her watering technique, she said her irrigation was watering it.

“No, it’s probably not enough,” I told her. The pot the plant came in is 12” deep, and an irrigation system designed for lawns just gets things wet visually. I told her to water with a hose instead.

Another lady said her trees arrived just in time for the rain. She got her trees three days ago, and it rained last night. I informed her about proper watering (and how rain does not count), and I hope these examples serve as a gentle reminder to everyone to get that water down into that root system if you wish for plant success during this trying time.

March, April, May saw no planes nor helicopters. Less traffic or no traffic at usually busy times... but that rare interlude is over now that we are back on the roads again. Too bad in my opinion.

Summer is here in a full drought onslaught on our ecosystem. The DOT hasn’t mowed the highways yet, and it looks really cool with tall grasses bending in the wind. It’s BEAUTIFUL!!!