A "Bonus" Day of Planting!

Note the neat foliage of bigleaf goldenray (Ligularia dentata 'Othello') that hasn't even bloomed yet (July with orange daisy clusters). It was supposed to be rainy all day today. As good as that would have been for the garden, we were fortunate to be able to get outside and be productive throughout the day, including the times with light showers. We had some great help with planting from Dr. Yahr and Heidi. Dr. Yahr is the founder of the gardens and is still active in helping shape the future of the gardens. He helped plant up over 30 containers today and Heidi worked with both Janice and Jenny. Larry planted roses and mowed while Jerry was all over the place. We prepped some areas for planting as well. A lot of what we do is proactive preparations for work days or future days where we'll have enough people to complete a project.

Lots of color in the Scottish Garden today. Our wonderful volunteer, Jan, was working out there today and has a lot of square footage to cover but does a wonderful job. We redesigned this garden in 2000 using all species native to Scotland. The plan for this renovated garden was actually approved by the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, Scotland. While we took liberties with variety selection of these natives, we have both a "highlands" section for Scottish alpine plants as well as a lowlands or "moor" section for wetland natives. The picture to the right contains English bluebells, rose campion and a rose in the background. This is one of my favorite gardens but Jan has been cursed with some of my past plant selections that proved to be quite vigorous! The rose below is the Scottish rose (Rosa spinosissima) with clear white blooms. This rose steals the show for about a week (only blooms once) but is quite a spreader and very thorny. It is hardy to zone 2 though and very tough. The European cranberrybush (or snowball) viburnum (Viburnum opulus 'Roseum') is also in that garden and is pictured below. This is the time of year you'll see these around town and enjoy the large white "puffballs". More planting tomorrow!