Mental Rejuvenation

Nice shot of bloodleaf (Iresine hybrida 'Blazin' Rose') above. We have this in the gardens but this shot was taken at Bill and Mary's garden. They will be on our Home Garden Tour on July 25th. This plant can take partial shade and really adds some foliage color. That pink veination is exceptional. There is also a green leaf, chartreuse-veined version of this called 'Blazin' Lime'. The image to the left is one of our borders taken care of by Don and Pearl. They do a wonderful job and note the repetition of orange on the obelisks and with the plume celosia (Celosia plumosa 'Fresh Look Orange'). This border will just look better as the summer progresses.

The day has been cool and what started as an overcast morning became a steady drizzle that has continued thru the day. The amount of precipitation thus far isn't a lot but it is a nice soaking rain. I hope it does this all night to be honest but we could use daily highs of 85 degrees F to keep things moving along. It's 70 degrees F as I type! Ugh.

We had Cindy and Kay weeding today and saw Mary H. out in her area as well. The rain chased everyone away with the exception of Dr. Gredler who is regraveling our lot behind the horticulture center. Marv, Marianne, Terry and Little Jerry have all been out weeding, watering, etc. and we decided to stop watering recently to let Mother Nature have a crack at it. We're hoping to have another great work day this Saturday and as our wonderful volunteers immerse themselves in purslane weeding, I'll be at Rocky Mountain National Park. Looking forward to the mental break but it looks to be an exhaustive amount of driving. Regardless, I hope to see some other gardens and know that ours is left in good hands. I am really pumped about this new ornamental millet (Pennisetum sp. 'Jade Princess') to the right. Note the already famous 'Purple Majesty' millet (Pennisetum glaucum) behind it. Not sure how tall 'Jade Princess' will ultimately get but I am loving the illumination from this plant and look forward to the inflorescences. Note the dried bloom remnants of the tumbleweed onion (Allium schubertii) below in our color rooms. We haven't had a lot of these fall-planted bulbs survive in the gardens but those that have, bloom with flower umbels that are 15-18" in diameter and still look good in to mid-summer as they dry. Now that's flower architecture!

Purslane Purging

Nice shot above of Iochroma 'Royal Queen' with huge clusters of purple/blue trumpets. This is a neat annual but is proving to be quite tall and floppy. Staking will be required shortly but that is a small concession for such neat blooms. I'll keep an eye out for perusing hummingbirds. This annual is new to me this year and seems to have some potential in the full sun garden or in containers. Today was another nice day with 80 degrees and sporadic clouds. Larry worked all day on repairing a nightmare water leak that amounted to digging a grave-sized hole to deal with this leak. Janice was here and worked with Winifred to plant some gaps in the sunken garden and east entrance. Little Jerry mowed, pruned and cleaned up around the Japanese garden. Bill is out there as I type cleaning up paths and we were fortunate to have Mary, Roy, Kay, Heidi and Donna all weeding today. They focused on purslane and were distraught to see that someone else had hoed (spelling?) up a lot of purslane and left it on the ground. Purslane will re-root and continue to grow if left there so they spent hours cleaning up the mess from another well-intentioned but ill-informed weeder. Regardless, our anti-purslane progress continues. Barb and Bev came in and weeded and planted in the Azalea/Rhododendron garden. They do nice thorough work. I'm continuing to work on lists and getting everything in order before vacation and did some watering as well. I'll do one more post tomorrow afternoon but will then sign off for 10 days. I should have some nice images from the Colorado State flower trial garden, Denver Botanic Garden and hopefully some other botanical stops along the way. Nice shot of our English cottage garden containers below. Note the wooly sage (Salvia argentea 'Hobbit's Foot') in the foreground. What a real textural plant (both visual and tactile!).

A Pleasant Day

Above is a nice shot of false spirea (Astilbe chinensis 'Visions') in our sunken garden. I'm starting to think I'm taking the same pictures each year of the same perennials as they bloom but I couldn't pass up a shot of this plant thriving and looking great. Astilbes really don't mind sun but need damp, organic, well-drained soils to look good and perform well. Unfortunately astilbes have been promoted as shade perennials and that's just not the case. The best looking astilbes I've seen have been in full sun along streamsides and waterways where they can stay damp. Awesome weather today with plenty of sun and a high of 80 degrees. This is the type of weather we should be having but I'll take some days in the 90s to get our annuals and veggies moving along out in the gardens. Nice shot of feather reed grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster') blooming in front of the Tiger Eyes sumac (Rhus typhina 'Bailtiger') near our east end. For a brief period of time, the inflorescences (flower/seed heads) are pinkish then age to a nice amber. I love this upright grass (and the sumac too!).

Good Grumpy turnout today with Terry and John painting the arched bridge while Jim, Dave and Dick H. continued to repair portions of it. Urban was pruning in the Japanese garden while Ron, Charlie and Bill finished up our new bench pad nearby. Gary and Del watered while Bob T. and Ron air-edged. Bob A. stained a new bench and we had Shirley weeding and Mary and Art planting. Our breakroom was full today and our grounds staff of Marv, Marianne, Terry, Larry and I all kept busy with various jobs, tasks and duties. Dr. Gredler was here mowing as well. We're focused on keeping the gardens irrigated over these dry days as July and August can really be tough on our thirstiest plants. Much of our efforts this time of year revolve around "artificial precipitation". We don't take the odds on rainfall and continue to target our driest areas. It is preferable to water deeply and more infrequently than to pamper plants with shallow watering (which we do here too!). The goal is to encourage plants to develop more extensive roots so they can make it thru a tough dry time. Looking forward to my vacation coming soon (road trip out West). No blogs between July 9 and July 19. The plant to the right is a delphinium variety 'Diamonds Blue' from Ball Seed. This is one of the new ones that we're trialing here this year. Our pink and chartreuse scheme is starting to fill out as seen below. Should be interesting to see it peak in a month or so......

Finally Heatin' Up

Above is a close-up of the drumstick allium (Allium sphaerocephalon) just starting to open up. I like this bulb a lot but it does reseed and it blooms very late for an autumn planted bulb. However, a close-up like this does it justice. Not much time to blog as I'm in trouble with the wife for not taking today off. We did a lot of watering today and all grounds staff (Marv, Marianne, Terry, Jerry, Janice and I) were busy with multi-tasking. We were fortunate to have Debbie do some whirlwind weeding in our reception garden and the trifecta of Laurie, Terri and Kay planted and weeded a large area over the entire morning. Dr. Gredler was here doing his mowing and the two "Elders" came in to plant down in the fern & moss garden. Nice to see it warm up again and we look forward to our plants continuing to thrive. A nice soaking rain would be nice but we'll keep pouring the water on as needed. Nice shot below of the annual summer snapdragon (Angelonia angustifolia). I believe this is the variety 'AngelFace Blue BiColor' but I might be wrong. Angelonias are great annuals in a sunny spot.

Thursday Progress (Significant)

Above is an image of a neat ornamental grass from the West Indies called basket grass. This is the variegated form of basket grass (Oplismenus hirtellus 'Variegatus') that is wonderful in containers, doesn't need a lot of light and trails nicely in window boxes and hanging baskets in particular. It is certainly an interesting looking grass and the hints of white, cream and pink are quite showy. We have this grass throughout the gardens; both in soil, pots and hanging baskets. The shot above is at my house and I think I'll continue to promote the use of this durable ornamental grass. Below is another image from my garden with lungwort (Pulmonaria sp.) and coral bells (Heuchera 'Silver Scrolls'?) mixing well with simply foliage.
We had a great volunteer turnout today which included our Thursday Grumpies. Winifred and Susie weeded in the reception garden and Sara worked in her area clearing out more weeds. Janice fertilized, mulched and kept an eye on the ladies while Larry diced up some dying magnolias and helped with various Grumpy projects. Little Jerry worked in the Japanese garden with Jumbo Jim and three RECAPPERS. They got a lot of work done in a short period of time. I was able to spray more herbicide and pulled more plants for installation tomorrow. The Grumpies worked on painting, carpentry repair, air edging and the excavation of a future bench pad. Chuck H. was here again to apply more herbicide to our rampant Canadian goldenrod population in the prairie and we look forward to seeing the results of this "culling of the herd". Overall, a cool day but good working weather and as always, I'm pleased with the continued level of maintenance and improvement of the gardens. Below is a shot of the emerging flowers of the native American elderberry (Sambucus canadensis). These flowers will eventually become those small purple berries that are used for jams, jellies and wine. As you travel the smaller highways and byways, you may note these growing in ditches and low spots. All of those 6-10' tall shrubs covered in bright white flower clusters are what you see below. There are lots of neat ornamental elderberries but those are mostly of European heritage.

Is October Here Already?

It was chilly and overcast today. The difference from the same time last week is literally 30 degrees F!!! That's crazy. It looks like the heat will return shortly and help nurture along our plants, including the infamous purslane (Portulaca sp.) seen above. I mentioned this plant in a previous blog and while it packs a nutritious punch, we don't care to have a solid carpet of this beast throughout all our annual beds. We're slowly but surely clearing it out and apparently had the help from some visitors last week that were aware of its culinary value and were collecting it in bags for later consumption! We've been continuing to water and irrigate the gardens before it gets hot again and were glad to catch up from all the heat last week. See below for the emergence of yet another garden menace here at Rotary Gardens. The Japanese beetle is out and voraciously looking for something to nibble upon (European filbert leaf in the image). We'll see what sort of year we have as the hordes descend...
Yesterday was very productive with Mary J., Debbie, Kay, Heidi, Shirley and Barb all weeding (some planting too) with Jenny near the gazebo garden. We had a great turnout and are trying to catch up with our weediest of areas. Kelley and Sue weeded and planted the remainder of the shade garden as well and we saw Mary H. tidying her area as well. Nice shot of the tatting fern (Athyrium filix-femina 'Frizilliae') to the left that I took this past Saturday at Peg's house. Peg volunteers in our English cottage garden and her home garden is wonderful.

Today was also very productive with Larry watering and running irrigation while Marv and Terry fertilized, planted, watered, weeded and pruned. Marianne worked on the iris collection and planted the last of our gaps in the front garden near the visitors center. Little Jerry mowed yesterday and today, was in and around the Japanese garden pruning and tidying. Shirley, Kay and Maggie were all here today to weed, plant and then weed again. Janice and Maggie worked together in the sunken garden and are getting it cleaned up for our impending outdoor weddings this weekend. To the right is a leaf of sea kale (Crambe maritima). This perennial from Europe has been used as a salad herb for centuries and is both nutritious and a beautiful, light blue component in the garden. At the bottom is a close-up of million bells (Calibrachoa 'Apricot Punch') at my home. Sometimes called mini-petunias (really not), these tough annuals are great in containers and hanging baskets. They do need good drainage and occasional fertilizer. We don't use many at Rotary Gardens as it's tough to have them looking this good thru late August and September. Regardless, there are many varieties of this tough annual out there.

Dog Vomit Slime Mold and Mushroom

See picture above for the dog vomit slime mold. Marv found this out in the gardens and Janice (see picture below) identified it after having some fun with the setting. It looked like one of the lovely treasure we find around the gardens after a wedding reception (along with cigarette butts, beer bottles, etc.). What an interesting "thing". I've "cut and pasted" some information from Janice below describing this slime mold (source referenced). Be sure to see the bottom photo (taken here last week) of the Devil's Dipstick mushroom. Another common name is Dog Penis mushroom. More flowers in future posts but the garden also contains other curiosities as well (ours has Janice below....)

This is most likely Fuligo septica, the aforementioned dog vomit slime mold. To answer everyone's most urgent question first, it's utterly harmless to people, pets and plants. In fact, Fuligo septica is edible. Native people in some parts of Mexico gather it and scramble it like eggs. I hear they call this dish "caca de luna," which I will let you translate for yourself, and which is an even more entertaining name than dog vomit slime mold.
Slime molds are misnamed. They are not molds (a kind of fungi); they are not plants, animals or bacteria, either. A slime mold is a completely different kind of critter. We see it in just part of its life cycle, as a plasmodium, which essentially is one giant cell with millions of nucleii. It is formed when two spores come together in something a little bit like sex and begin dividing into a large creeping blob of protoplasm surrounded by a single membrane. The plasmodium moves by slowly flowing or streaming, gradually engulfing and consuming fungi and bacteria that are present on decaying plant matter. Many a horror movie has owed its inspiration to plasmodiums.
Slime molds often are found on mulch, especially in places like gardens and parks that are regularly watered. But they evolved in forests. I never will forget a hike I took through the temperate rain forest of the Olympic National Park in Washington, where within a couple of hours we came across at least a dozen kinds of slime molds in different forms and practically glowing colors, some of which appeared to be visibly moving. Not that slime molds move very fast -- 1 milimeter an hour is a pretty good clip for a plasmodium.
There are many kinds of slime molds. Physarum polycephalum ("many-headed slime") is another one common in dark, cool, damp, woody places. Fuligo septica, the kind we most often find in Midwestern gardens, appears on wood mulch or trees or leaves after rains or watering as a bright yellow mass that makes people think their dogs are sick. It is said to sometimes reach the size of a pizza. Over the next couple of days it ages to pinkish tan and hardens as it forms new spores. Eventually it dries up and disappears, leaving the many tiny spores behind to wait until the conditions are right for another plasmodium.
Slime molds have been doing this with great success for millions of years. They are one of those ancient organisms that has not changed much over time because what they were doing was working just fine. Fascinated scientists are sequencing their genome.
The appearance of these yellow blobs seems to alarm some people; in 1973 in Dallas, a slime mold was taken for an alien invasion. In fact, Fuligo septica is native to our woods. There's no reason to worry about it. It is not a disease. It's a natural phenomenon that doesn't hurt anything. Slime molds help break down plant matter, which aids the microorganisms essential to the healthy growth of plants. Like so many other things that creep people out, they are actually good for the garden.
There is no way to prevent slime molds; the spores are all over the place, just waiting for the right conditions to become active. If the appearance of a slime mold in your garden offends you, break it up by raking out the mulch or blasting it with the hose.

This post is part of The Chicago Gardener, a blog of the Chicago Tribune. See more posts about mulch here.