Progress & Preparations

Blogging late again as it was a long day and we ran over to the Southern WI AirFest tonight. It was really neat although ear plugs would have been a good idea! Nice shot above of globeflower (Trollius europaeus) in the Scottish garden. Normally a June bloomer, we've enjoyed it for three weeks now! Crazy day but RBG is thankfully blessed with a dynamite grounds crew and Marv, Terry, Little Jerry, Marianne and Janice did a great job with their various projects today. John, Jenny and Larry round out the crew but don't work on Fridays. We had Kay today clearing bulb foliage in the sunken garden and also had volunteer assistance from Vern, Dr. Yahr, Dr. Gredler, Rose and Urban. Marv and Terry watered, prepped the reception garden for planting (no small feat), fertilized and prepped the formal perennial garden too. Everyone burned some major calories today. Marianne cut bulb foliage, did her cutting display, watered, tidied and got he compost sale ready to go for tomorrow (our last official sale date for compost (9 am - noon). Marianne also hauled about 60 flats of flowers out for me in anticipation of our planting day tomorrow. Janice planted, watered, weeded and will be helping facilitate the work day tomorrow. Little Jerry pruned and mowed and I layed out flowers for tomorrow and will again attempt to stay ahead of our motivated. The image below is a foliage close-up of a nice variegated, redtwig dogwood (Cornus sericea 'Hedgerows Gold') which is currently my favorite variegated variety. The next picture down shows a "pseudo hedge" of three of these in a row at my in-laws house. I like the look and the winter stem color is a nice, deep, maroon red. The bottom is one of my favorite foliage perennials. The golden spiderwort (Tradescantia x andersoniana 'Sweet Kate') is eye-catching and despite looking a bit flattened by irrigation, this plant will get some blue flowers soon. Spiderworts in general can reseed and become a nuisance and I have seen this variety seed out many green reversions. Oh well, cull them out and enjoy the gold appeal!