Tuesday, September 29, 2009

A Crescendo To A Nice Day

Another nice shot from Santos can be seen above. This shot is taken from our porch overlooking the formal gardens. Still lots of color but there is a chance of light frost tonight. We'll see what happens. I hope it misses us as we can still have nice seasonal color for a couple weeks and like to offer something for the early October visitor. Today was windy and chilly this morning but turned out to be a sunny, blue sky day. I don't mind temperatures in the 60s and 70s so this agrees with me and I think our volunteers as well. We had Patty and Sally here today as well as Kay, Barb and Joyce. The ladies were involved with some planting in the alpine garden (donated plants) but then shifted to cleaning up more annual beds. We are continuing to weed but remove any seasonal that isn't "pulling its weight" out there. We had four ladies from Lab Safety Supply come in and volunteer for the day. They did a great job removing annuals from the reception garden and planted 400 daffodils in the new wishing well garden. They get paid for a day of volunteering and this same group has come for three years now! I'm trying to get them to use their vacation time next year to get more work out of them!? Nice shot below of one of my favorite annuals blooming well until frost. This is the Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia 'Torch') that tops out around 6' tall. Try 'Fiesta Del Sol' if you want a shorter (3-4') version. The last of the butterflies will flock to this plant and while it doesn't look like much until late August, it sure becomes an eyecatcher.
Dr. Yahr and Dr. Gredler were both here helping out today as was Bill with his superior tidying abilities. Little Jerry mowed and worked on pruning and clean-up around the gardens. Janice helped facilitate our many volunteers this morning and push-mowed, planted, tidied, watered, etc. Larry finished work on his spigot, push-mowed and has helped with projects as they came up today. Rod and I did a nice presentation for the Edgerton Rotary Club and hope they will consider personal membership and perhaps some type of sponsorship as a group. We'll see. The bottom images feature our giant papyrus (Cyperus papyrus 'King Tut') that is around 8' tall right now. Note the interesting "appendage" of thread-like stems at the top. This monocot is a member of the sedge family and while not hardy, it sure grows well in our summers. The bottom photo shows this plant with elephant ears (Colocasia esculenta) and other goodies.


No comments: