August To October in 12 Hours

With highs in the low 70s today, it was quite a change from yesterdays temperatures. Everyone mentioned how brutal it was yesterday. Nice shot above of the sunken garden today. Note the Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm' (featured previously in a blog) behind the bench. Despite looming clouds, we had no rain today but may get it Thursday. We'll see. Still lots of watering occurring today. The "flood fellas" kept busy today with more tree removals and path re-graveling. We had some help out in the plant sale today from Kay, Kristine and Cora. We should have more help tomorrow and did get our last big plant delivery this afternoon. All of our plant sale perennials are checked for labels and receive a label of a specific color that denotes their cost. The sale looks pretty good with lots for everybody.

To the right is a nice shot of one of my favorite begonias (Begonia coccinea 'Sinbad') that has nice pink blooms but is best known for its silver foliage with pink undertones. It's actually in the lower right of the topmost image. We've planted lots of this around the gardens where it thrives in part shade. I continue to be entranced and impressed with the durability and impact of begonias in general. To the lower left is a neat, semi-woody plant that I hope will be hardy in our climate. The common name for this plant is golden Aaron's beard (Hypericum calycinum 'Brigadoon') and it's known for bright yellow foliage in partly shaded conditions. This plant is listed to be hardy to zone 5 and should get 15-18" high and 24" wide. We planted about 50 of these in our new woodland walk garden along paths with the intent of them offering that "punctuation of brightness" throughout an area with dappled sunlight. The flowers of this plant are also yellow (this is also a species of St. John's wort) but are lost amongst the foliage. What a neat plant. It does have orange overtones and I could see using it as an annual or container component if it doesn't prove hardy.

The image at the bottom is of the visitors center at the Klehm Arboretum and Botanic Garden in Rockford, IL. My younger daughter and I went there on Saturday to walk around and we always enjoy our annual visit. They are a developing garden that already has a wonderful woody plant collection and they do amazing things on a tight budget. They are suffering some of the same financial challenges in which we are currently involved (they do charge a fee for non-members). I recommend a visit to everyone and feel that this garden will only get better each year and has a bright future. Rockford also has the famous Anderson Gardens which is one of the best Japanese gardens in North America.