Saturday, June 19, 2010

The Calm After The Storm

It was a busy weekend after a wicked storm came thru on Friday afternoon around 3:30 p.m. The sky turned black, the winds whipped sideways...and then there was a 50' tall boxelder (Acer negundo) in our back yard that had fallen in a nice gap away from the garage and playset. Above is Larry and Maury who were nice enough to come over Saturday afternoon to help dice this tree up. We spent a good two hours on it and I continued on it today for a couple more hours. I'll have a tree service remove the largest portion that is still precariously perched on our fence and supported by two branches jammed well in to the ground. Better safe than sorry. Neat shot of the illumination that a Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum var. pictum) can provide. This is in Janice's garden and the setting sunlight caught it just right.
While we didn't have any major trees down in the garden, Larry and the gang spent time cleaning debris up on Saturday. Jumbo Jim had three RECAPPERS and they did a nice job collecting debris and hauled back over 20 large loads of branches. Bill was there helping prepare all the wedding sites prior to the three weddings that missed the storm. There was a scheduled Friday night wedding that probably had to relocate due to the weather. I came in for a couple hours and brought my younger daughter. We gave a tour to the WI/IL Chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society (see below). There were about 10 members and we had a nice walk around the gardens. My daughter met one of the members, a young lady from Turkey that is currently a botany student at UW-Madison, and chatted her ear off.We hope to finish planting our annuals this week although the weather forecast might slow us down a bit. We only have about five medium sized areas left to plant and tomorrow is a scheduled planting day for the Noon Rotary Club. They've done this for about four years now and after their scheduled lunch meeting, we'll get a dozen or so members (if it's not raining) to help install another 2,000+ annuals. Some shots included here are from my home garden. My wife and I actually shot the same composition (purple coneflower, lily, lamb's ears, and if you look closely, bindweed!). To the right is the variegated false sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides 'Loraine Sunshine) that has variable variegation (and reversions to green) but still looks neat to me (30" tall). I probably blogged last October about planting lilies out in my home garden. Well, this double yellow below looks great and I've become re-addicted to lilies (Lilium).

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