Many Achievements On A Rainy Day

There was no direct sunshine today and while it was dark and overcast all morning, we were able to fit in a very productive morning with grounds staff and volunteers. Nice shot above and below of elements in the Nancy Yahr Memorial Garden (called the wishing well garden frequently) as I found myself down there this morning placing plants for planting today and tomorrow. I love that arched seating well area above (note the 'Terra Cotta' yarrow in the foreground) and the limestone steps below with surrounding plantings are quite nice for being planted last fall. The drizzle started around 10:30 am and continued until 2 pm or so for us. I was glad to see the rain as a good soaking this week should help develop some deep roots and will let us focus on planting instead of dragging out hoses and sprinklers. Marv and Terry did a nice job weeding, composting, rototilling and eventually planting what we call the "sign area" over at nearby Palmer Park. The Janesville Area Convention & Visitors Bureau (JACVB) has a visitors information office in one of the park buildings and for over a decade now, we've planted up the 300 sq. ft. bed around their sign with annuals. The parks department takes care of weeding, watering and maintaining the planting, after we install the plants. We have a great relationship with the JACVB and they trade us some significant advertising for this service. The guys also worked on mulching and other projects in the drizzle this afternoon. Everyone was pretty damp today including Little Jerry who worked on shearing shrubs in front of the visitors center and also did work in the Japanese garden. Janice and Marianne worked on their respective projects (indoors and outdoors) while Larry spent the day with the string trimmer hitting all those "hard to reach" shaggy spots. He mentioned how heavy that trimmer was by the end of the day and the wet grass attached to his pants added another 20 lbs. I'm sure! I was able to lay out another couple thousand annuals, most of which were planted before the rains really settled in for the afternoon. I'm also working on our Home Garden Tour and starting preparations already for our fall plant sale. Both plants shown here were also in the wishing well garden and are showy perennials selected for a long "bloom window." To the left is the pink speedwell (Veronica spicata 'Fairytale') with upright flower clusters thru mid-summer and to the right is the dwarf wood betony (Stachys monieri 'Hummelo') which is one of my top 10 favorite perennials for full sun (will take part shade too though). These little violet-pink "bottlebrush-like" blooms are very long lasting and the foliage of this plant always looks good. Mondays are always rife with good volunteers. Above are Don and Pearl planting the area that they have lovingly tended for the past eight years. Prior to that, they took care of another location. They do a great job and worked thru the drizzle to install 300 annuals in this space with just a couple more to go along the front of the path. The scary thing is that they not only match clothes when they volunteer but all the time!? :) Good folks. We had two new volunteers today, Beth and Ronnie, who jumped right in to planting with Mary, Mary, John, Gary and Ron. They did a great job and Peg K. was in the English cottage garden tidying up as well. Jumbo Jim was here later with RECAPPERS and they were very helpful as always. Nice shot of donkeytail spurge (Euphorbia myrsinites) which has such an interesting look after the early chartreuse flowers fade. This perennial is a thug in other climates but a nice edging perennial for us.


The Grumpies were well represented today with Del and Ron W. jumping right in to composting and Urban and Charlie worked on skimming up gravel and refreshing an older path with fresh gravel in the Hosta Hollow garden. Pat and Ron B. did a nice job along our east parking lot with weeding, mulching and tidying up that end of the garden. Gary and Maury helped organize the yard and moved on to other duties. The carpenters were down working on the new arbor and sizing up future gates (see Jim, Vern and Dave's lower torso to the right..). Those guys are so darn handy. Big John cleared a coastal area of weeds and mulched around our desireable plantings. He later shifted to planting with the gang and does a nice job keeping things moving along. He was a huge help Saturday too and is growing on us (like a fungus). Dr. Yahr and Avis (see below) did a nice job planting in the wishing well garden and we hope to finish that space later this week if possible. We also saw Geesje, Mike, Dave, Bev and of course Dr. Gredler. The iris beds in this space, once the irises are cleared out and divided, will be planted with annuals in mid-July for colorful filler (using donated annuals from area nurseries). The two bottom photos show another great garden perennial called yellow meadowrue (Thalictrum flavum ssp. glaucum) that not only has the contribution of showy yellow flower clusters in June thru July, but also sky blue foliage. This perennial tops out at about 48" in damp (moisture essential), full sun although it will tolerate part shade as well.