Three Four links this week:

• Carey Goldberg, The Key To Gardening Without Blowing Out Your Back? It’s Not What You Think
• UMass Agricultural Extension, Landscape Message: June 26, 2015 [Ed.:  Defoliation by winter moth caterpillars and gypsy moth caterpillars was of particular interest to me.  They did a number on oaks in the area this year.]
• North American Butterfly Association, Massachusetts Butterfly Species [Ed.:  We’ve been seeing a lot of what think are fritillaries on our butterfly weed over the past couple weeks.]
• UMass Fruit Advisor, Easy Peach Pruning

In other news, our butterfly weed and New Jersey tea have been in full bloom for the past couple weeks and are now a bit past peak.  The butterfly weed is a magnet for honeybees and bumble bees.  (Yesterday my son and I sat down in between two big patches of it and just watched the bees for 10 minutes.)  The New Jersey tea is a magnet for other, smaller pollinators, none of which I recognize – small wasps or wasp-like insects maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch long.  As the butterfly weed and New Jersey tea fade out it looks like the echinacea is about the open up.  Brown-eyed susans, blazing star, Joe Pye weed, and Culver’s Root shouldn’t be far behind.