The Story Behind June 2025

June marks the beginning of summer—a time when we all start to truly feel the shift in seasons and crave time spent outdoors.  We hope that this design brightens your day and starts out the summer season on a cheerful foot! 

This year’s June calendar design was created by John ffrench and originally appeared in one of the very first Dolphin Studio calendars back in the 1970s. I’ve always had a special place in my heart for this design, so when it was one of the options to bring back for 2025, I knew it would be a favorite for many of you too.

John had a real talent for floral designs, and this one is no exception. Below, I’ve shared a few of my all-time favorite pieces he created over the years—they’re timeless, joyful, and full of life.

Not only was John a brilliant artist, but he was also an avid gardener. You can see how his love of flowers and color deeply influenced his work. He spent countless hours in his garden and visited flower shops all over the Berkshires searching for the perfect blooms and plants.

One of my most vivid memories of my grandpa (John) was during a summer trip to Ireland when I was about six years old. He was busy gardening and re-landscaping the yard at our family’s house. We were all outside enjoying the day when suddenly, a herd of cows came trotting down the road—and someone had forgotten to close the gate. Instead of continuing down the road, the cows veered right into my grandpa’s garden and trampled through all the freshly planted flowers. It turned into a wild 15-minute adventure trying to herd them out, and while it was chaos at the time, I now look back on it as a scene straight out of a children’s book.