Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Beauty And The Beast

Nice and warm today although extremely windy. We scrambled to get our watering done this afternoon as we had to address containers, our yard full of plants and our plant sale veggies, herbs and daylilies. This warmth should get things moving along (including the weeds...). Nice shot of 'Purple Sensation' ornamental onion (Allium) to the left with our lime green obelisks. Lots of alliums out there showing nice color. Tulips are fading fast and should be done shortly. Another busy day outside. Kay and Kelley weeded the other half of the shade garden and planted a couple hundred plants out there as well. Marv and Terry worked on "lifting" tulips, putting up obelisks, digging dead roses, rototilling, composting, watering, etc. They bounced around as needed and saved the day with watering. Dr. Gredler mowed, watered and worked on turf repair. I ran around laying out plants and organizing plants for tomorrow. Larry pulled the "short straw" today and worked on draining and cleaning the koi pond with Bill (see Larry to the right, he sure looks happy). UGH! This involved catching the fish, presssure washing the pond and eventually, skimming up a couple thousand pounds of fish poop (tomorrow). This arduous task is essential and although we lost many of our fish over the winter, we're looking forward to a clean system and really focusing on plant and aquatic health this year. This might be the first blog to feature a picture of fish poop. This could be used as fertilizer but it has rocks, coins and other debris in it from those that like to throw things in our pond. Lots of work.
I can't even begin to keep up with what's looking good around the gardens as there seems to be neat plants everywhere. As our bulbs go dormant, we'll start to plant the larger areas as time allows. We have four sequential planting work days over the next four Saturdays and hope for 20 or so volunteers each workday so we can plant the larger areas and get them watered that same day. We are looking at solid planting all the way thru June. Nice shot of yellow fumitory (Corydalis lutea) below that carpets our shade gardens and is a non-stop bloomer. I don't mind it reseeding here and there. What's ironic is this specimen (my best photo of this plant yet, taken today) is a seedling in our Scottish alpine garden. Too pretty to pull!



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