100 days of spring

Usually, spring in this part of New England flashes by between a lengthy frozen winter and a blast of summer heat. This year, however, we've had raw April showers in June and soft May breezes into July. Some plants--I'm thinking tomatoes and roses--have had difficulty with the chill and damp, but cool-weather plants like sweet peas and this purple-flecked larkspur seem to welcome a longer, slower season. Me, too!



The long spring has also smoothed late-season planting, such as the three Ilex crenata "Sky Pencil" hollies that were slipped in to screen a wooden fence.



The established summersweet Clethra alnifolia "September Beauty" bushes in front of these new hollies will now have to be repositioned to smooth the line. But that will have to wait until early fall, before we're hit with the usual 200 days of winter.