Wednesday, August 27, 2008

October Mornings, July Afternoons...

The mornings have been unseasonably cool (sweatshirt weather) but the afternoons still warm up nicely. Today was really nice weather and we accomplished much. We had more mums come in for the plant sale and Larry and Bill went to pick up dwarf New England asters as well. Jerry kept the irrigation zones going and is doing a nice job pruning in the Japanese garden. The flood workers were productive and were removing downed trees today which was brutal work. Many of these had fallen in to our pond and they were damp and hard to maneuver. Kudos to the fellas who are getting a good work out every day. Marv and Marianne were a blessing today and sunk their teeth in to adjusting and labeling our iris collection to date. I believe we have about half (250) of the total varieties (500) that we'll be displaying and had to make some minor shifting today for spacing issues and are really trying to keep up with the labeling. See below.We've been meeting regularly at the gardens to decide what we'll do next year to celebrate our 20th Anniversary. We will have some beautiful new garden signs (very professional) installed in 20 of the gardens. In addition, donors have given a generous sum for a nice spring tulip display. Target Mother's Day to see most of these in bloom next May. While we don't have any money budgeted for this celebration, we do hope to enhance our current events and really invite the public to come celebrate our 20 years of providing "horticultural education and appreciation" for everyone. The flowers below are Chinese asters (Callistephus chinensis) that are in full bloom right now. This annual doesn't look like much until August but has a long-lived bloom that is excellent for cutting. We plant lots of this annual and have learned to be patient and enjoy the late summer rewards. At the far bottom is a nice image of the front of the Parker Education Center.

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