Summerscape
September 18, 2017 
By Mary Beth Pottratz
A red-eyed vireo calls from a thick clump of red-osier dogwood, “Here I am. Where are you? Over there.” I can’t see the little bird for the dense leaves, but its distinctive series of three-note songs gives it away.
Though the main gardens at the Arboretum are filled with Sunday visitors, the trail around Green Heron Pond is deliciously quiet. With the first week of summer, leaves are lush. Most plants are setting their buds. Many are in bloom.
Jewelweed flower
I find the first little jewelweed blossom of the season, with orange specks on its yellow spurred slipper. These translucent plant stems are nearing four feet tall already! Swamp milkweed, one of those important plants for monarch butterflies, have just started to bloom. I catch their heady scent in waves on the warm air.
Juvenile Red-winged blackbirds play tag through the cattails while their mother…
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