Youthful Energy Abounds!

It was a crazy (in a good way) day in the gardens today. Above is a shot of young volunteer planters from St. Paul's Lutheran here in Janesville. They did a wonderful job and the 19 kids with 6 adults collectively planted over 4,000 annuals. They were an enthusiastic bunch and it was beautiful weather for planting. I would love to have them back again in the future. I have another group (similar age) from Beloit tomorrow and look forward to their help as well. Nice shot of 'Globemaster' allium below from Laurie Matelli, a heck of a photographer and current president of our Rock Prairie Master Gardener Association.

Today was also a Grumpy day and the guys kept very busy. John and Gary worked on repainting the fishing pier while Dave, Jim and Bob A. worked on repairing our arched bridge railing. Del and Ron hauled daylilies then shifted to removing allium stems/foliage with Charlie and Dick H. Maury and Dick P. helped as well as it was an enormous undertaking. Vern and Glenna were also here. Little Jerry worked in the Japanese garden while Jumbo Jim used two RECAPPERS to help clean up in that same garden. Bill did a lot of his tidying throughout the gardens while Larry ran around to help with Badger Days set-up intermingled with occasional weedwhipping as time allowed. Janice helped water, weed, had meetings and worked with her high school volunteers. Overall, very busy. I'm at 75% health which was enough to get thru today. We could use rain but we hope it avoids the 8am-noon timeframe this Saturday as we have about 20,000 annuals to put in the ground. Nice picture below (taken yesterday) of the foliage of 'Samurai Sword' Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum). What a nice combination of silver and purple tones. Considering ferns don't have flowers, their interest is in texture and foliage impact. The bottom image is of false indigo (Baptisia australis) in my front yard. Beautiful. Look in to the Baptisias for long-lived, exciting perennials in your full sun garden. Lots of choices out there nowadays...