Sunday, April 20, 2008

Well, It WAS a Daily Blog...

I had a good run for awhile there. Saturday was crazy at the gardens with a wonderfully productive (albeit chaotic) work day. Daffodils are going crazy (Note Narcissus 'Pistachio' to the right). We had 25 teenagers from St. Matthews youth group come and help pot up perennial divisions from the garden. The forecast was for rain all day so we set up everything inside our Horticulture Center. The weather was nice and I had another 20 adult volunteers in need of a job out in the gardens. The kids were very productive and once we hit our groove, we had volunteers digging perennials from the garden, dividing them and then getting them to the kids for repotting, labeling and pricing (May 17 sale). We must have added another 2,000 divisions to our growing collection. Our work days are always fun and this was no exception. We had a donut break and although I was surprised by the number of teenagers "chugging" coffee, I didn't mind the increased output....

I think visitors miss a lot of the subtle features of the garden like this wall "sculpture." I can't remember the history of this piece but I will say that the hard scape of the gardens is superior; retaining walls, sculpture, brick work, etc. We do a lot with plants no doubt, but the overall setting of the gardens is a combination of elements that goes well beyond just flowers. There are many focal points and subtle design features that relay to the visitor that they are entering a new garden space or "garden room." These same techniques can be used effectively at the home garden scale.

The summer teaser is of our salvia collection last year (150 varieties). This year it will be annual vinca (Catharanthus) of over 170 varieties. More about that later....



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