This Summer the Bluecircle is washed with green.  There is impressive new growth on almost all of the pines that survived the drought of ’12, and on a few hundred Scotch pine replacements.  It is almost lost in the rapidly rising tide of ragweed, wild grape and even poison ivy – wherever it has escaped the mower.  The Japanese beetles, brown with a little green, have emerged to challenge the upwards growth of the cultivated grapes.  Ironically, these guests with no natural predators seem prefer wine grapes and roses over the wild varieties.  Overnight new leaves and blossoms were lost and it was time to break out the pesticides.

The grasses have already produced seed and now mostly subside, growing dryer by the day.  Random sunflowers seeded here and by the birds and rodents are weedlike but will evade culling if they lie within the rows of pines or infant oaks.   So far, regular rains have improved the appearance of essentially everything on the Bluecircle.