Today in the orchard
Rain returned to the farm today. After five dry days, a day of rain was welcome. Even though we’ve had plenty of water this spring, we still appreciate those rainy days. (It gives us an excuse to do other things.) Rain or not, we irrigate our nursery trees and give the newly-planted trees in the orchards about ten gallons each, once a week. Don’t be fooled if they look good. It still takes them a good solid year to get acclimated to their new ‘digs.’
Finley Lane old cellar-hole lilacs, likely 150 years old.
The lilacs are at peak bloom now on the farm. The vulgaris types will be fading over the course of the next week. Then the later shrub species will appear followed by the tree lilacs. We don’t consider ourselves to be experts, but we do have some favorites: Ludwig Spaeth (dark purple) and President Lincoln (blue) are among those at the top of the list. We also love the good ol’ fashioned Common Purple. It’s the one you find around nearly every old abandoned cellar hole in Maine even a century after the last building has melted back into the earth. They are hard to beat.
