A Nice Mini-Fieldtrip

The only picture in this blog posting from Rotary Botanical Gardens are the cucumbers at the bottom, collected by Janice for a donation to the local food bank. I was fortunate to have some time last night to tour Olbrich Botanical Gardens (Madison, WI) and later went over to the home of Jeff Epping, Director of Horticulture at Olbrich. His garden was open to members of the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society and I'm glad I visited. Very nice. The globe thistle (Echinops) above was at his garden and really caught the eye with vivid blue coloration on a spherical umbel of blooms. We've had globe thistles reseed here which can be an issue but I always enjoy seeing a specimen at peak bloom.


It was extremely hot and muggy today and we all were careful to get enough water and cool off. Big John and Terry watered most of the day while Larry kept the irrigation running and also hand mowed various areas. Little Jerry pruned our barberry hedge and did some cleaning up. I was able to spray some herbicide and had various meetings. I think I got the most air conditioning today but don't regret it! Marv and Marianne are on a well-deserved break and we'll see them on Monday. We hope we'll get those potential showers tonight as the burden of watering is becoming significant. The shot to the left is of the annual Mexican feather grass (Stipa tenuissima) in a container at Olbrich. I love the texture of this grass and we have lots of it at the gardens. Our specimens haven't developed this far along though and I imagine the hot spot in a warm container has pushed this grass further along. Looking good. The plant to the right is a perennial I'll be purchasing en masse for RBG next year. This is the new 'Pink Cotton Candy' wood betony (Stachys officinalis) which is a nice, compact new variety out of the Chicagoland Grows program. See www.chicagolandgrows.org/downloads/pinkcottoncandy.pdf for more information on this plant. I saw multiple clumps of this around Olbrich last night and am quite impressed as many of our other betony varieties have finished blooming already. Below is an impressive patch of Japanese blood grass (Imperata cylindrica 'Red Baron') that I've admired at Olbrich. I believe they have edging in place to keep this grass from spreading (which it really wants to do in damp soils). This is certainly a showy grass although we don't have it at RBG because of its "wandering tendencies". Even with all the heat today we had some great volunteer assistance. Kay was here weeding our front berm near the road and was later joined by Mary. They did a nice job although Kay will finish the task Friday. We can't believe the number of weed seedlings we're contending with out there despite our use of pre-emergent herbicides. I'm pretty bummed about all the manual weeding that we'll still have to do over the coming weeks but we'll sink our teeth in to it as time and motivation allow. Dr. Gredler was here mowing and doing some indoor projects while we also saw Dr. Yahr, Maury, Jean, Dick H., Dick P., Pam and others. To the left is 'Monet Moment' cardinal flower (Lobelia hybrida) that really looked good with the maroon barberry (Berberis) in the background. This lobelia has earned lots of accolades and I hope to track it down for next year. I love the appropriately copius use of golden Hakone grass all over Olbrich. They use most of the varieties although my favorite is the 'All Gold' Hakone grass (Hakenechloa macra) seen along one of their paths to the right. What a nice "edge softener" in part shade. Directly below is a close-up of the blackberry lily (Belamcanda chinensis) which I always find striking.