Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Beautiful Today But Hopeful For Rain

It was a wonderful day outside and ended up quite warm and sunny. Plants out in the gardens (including weeds) are growing quickly. I do hope we'll get some rain soon as we can use it. With the holiday weekend, it was a crazy day here at the gardens with Grumpies, volunteers, grounds staff and lots of visitors. I didn't have much time to take pictures as I just tried to keep ahead of the 25 or so staff and volunteers we've had here today. The pictures I'm including today were taken over at Olbrich Botanical Gardens (Madison, WI) from yesterday. The garden there is looking very nice and is also in "transition" from spring displays/containers to their summer displays. Memorial Day is usually a good transition point for both our gardens to segway in to summer interest. Nice picture to the left of pink canterbury bells (Campanula medium) in one of the Olbrich containers. I've always enjoyed their containers and will go back in a couple of months to see how their summer containers turn out. I took many pictures at Olbrich but my younger daughter was pleased when my camera battery died so she wouldn't have to pause every five steps and wait for me to take a picture. We saw lots of wildlife there (painted turtles, frogs, geese, ducks, etc.) including red-winged blackbirds dive bombing us as we got near their nests.

Marv and Terry set up sprinklers today, rototilled and ran for our second to last plant run for the spring to pick up more specialty annuals. Janice worked on watering containers and spreading more pre-emergents in the hopes of eliminating our yearly purslane problem. Marianne tidied up the iris beds, helped facilitate volunteers, did her cutting display and planted a portion of our globe amaranth (Gomphrena sp.) collection with Jenny and Bill. Jenny also helped organize labels in the yard and watered. Little Jerry mowed and is currently working on shaping some medium sized pine trees and Larry worked on mowing, watering , etc. Big John mowed, rototilled, composted and watered today. The entire grounds crew was here which is quite rare but welcomed. To the right is a nice shot of 'Misty Lace' goatsbeard (Aruncus hybrida) at Olbrich although we have many specimens as well. We had a smaller Grumpy crew today with Del starting on composting with Pat and Ron joining him later after they dismantled our last five plant sale tables. Bob T. air-edged while Vern was the sole carpenter and worked on the new desk for the laser engraver. Kay, Margaret, Marilyn and Heidi worked on clearing out three large areas of weeds and bulb foliage and did a very nice job. They all work well together and accomplish a monumental amount of work in one morning. Bev W. was here to plant her area of the sunken garden (looks great) and Dr. Yahr was here to help plant as well. Dr. Gredler was here to mow and we also saw Maury, Rollie, Gary, Julie, Judy, Karen, Bev and Barb here today too. Below are some other images at Olbrich from yesterday. Definitely worth a visit as Jeff and crew have always done a topnotch job.

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