Today was a perfect day with blue skies, a breeze and temperatures around 80 degrees F. I think this transition to pre-Autumn weather is what brought back so many of our Grumpies today. We had a full cr
ew this morning and the gardens were abuzz with gardening activities and other projects. It's rare when we have to bring in extra chairs to our break room but we had a full crew. The shot above is our entrance garden slope which continues to get compliments and still looks great this late in the season. I was working on finishing a large order today and getting ready for our laser engraver training tomorrow so lost track of what everyone was doing. However, Mary and Bev weeded and tidied up and Karen was working in the Japanese garden.
Shirley came in and worked in both the color rooms garden and reception garden. Charlie, Ron W., Ron B., Bill, Pat and Dick K. raked and collected leaves and debris while Urban and Gary worked on regraveling parts of the Japanese garden. Dave, Vern, Bob A. and Jim worked on repairing the Japanese garden fence while Maury, Big John, Rollie, Dick P. and Dick H. worked in the sunken garden (see below) excavating a ditch for a new power line wh
ich will be finished tomorrow. The guys had all the brick back in place by the end of the morning. Note below how Maury (standing/directing) is the supervisor! To the left is the gigantic maroon elephant grass (
Pennisetum purpureum 'Prince') that fills out so nicely by the end of the summer and while we never see blooms, the stature of a 8' tall, bold maroon grass can be quite impressive (and hard to forget!). To the right is one of our caladiums (
Caladium 'White Queen') in the gazebo garden where the white foliage catches the eye from quite a distance, and as the viewer gets closer, the red/pink veination becomes more apparent and interesting. The picture beneath the guys in the sunken garden is the annual feathertop grass (
Pennisetum villosum) which really has some interesting and showy flower heads throughout mid-summer.
Mary brought down two RECAP ladies today to work on our irises. These are the same ladies that have been so helpful with our watering needs on Sunday and really have alleviated a lot of weekend time for bo
th Larry and myself. Over the past couple of years, our "Sunday Waterers" have been instrumental in helping out the gardens and keeping me from having to worry about weekend watering. Marv and Terry did a great job moving boulders out of our parking lot and smoothing over the gravel to
create more parking for our upcoming events. The guys moved to some other projects but ended up spending the afternoon watering our containers which were quite dry by the end of the day. Marianne spent lots of time in the front entrance garden and later helped with the upcoming iris sale. Larry was here for half a day and help the sunken garden crew, ran irrigation and accomplished some other projects. Janice popped in later in the afternoon for some preparations for the upcoming Garden Festival (Aug. 28th, 11am-4pm). Dr. Yahr was here to weed and prune while Dr. Gredler spent most of the day mowing and running loads of debris to the dump. We also saw Bev and Lisa popped in to talk daylilies as she helped with the recent daylily sale up at Olbrich by the WI Daylily Society. She picked up some neat ones for the gar
dens and shared some tips for future daylily sales. Two more of my favorite seasonals can be seen above with bloodleaf (
Iresine hybrida 'Blazin' Rose') to the left and silver begonia (
Begonia 'Sinbad') to the right. Here are some serious foliage contributors and both add a touch of important color in a part-shade arrangement or container. Both of these are in our sunken garden among other areas as well. Below is the extremely large-leaved 'Scarlet Kong' coleus (
Solenostemon scutellarioides) that continues to impress me with such bold texture and at the bottom is one of the "whitest" of caladiums (
Caladium) called 'Moonlight'. We have this variety repeated along the long, dark gazebo border where the white really pops out. Caladiums are so easy and we order ours in March so we can get them going early in 4" pots so they have some size in early June when we plunk them in the ground.
Today was a perfect day with blue skies, a breeze and temperatures around 80 degrees F. I think this transition to pre-Autumn weather is what brought back so many of our Grumpies today. We had a full cr
ew this morning and the gardens were abuzz with gardening activities and other projects. It's rare when we have to bring in extra chairs to our break room but we had a full crew. The shot above is our entrance garden slope which continues to get compliments and still looks great this late in the season. I was working on finishing a large order today and getting ready for our laser engraver training tomorrow so lost track of what everyone was doing. However, Mary and Bev weeded and tidied up and Karen was working in the Japanese garden. 
Shirley came in and worked in both the color rooms garden and reception garden. Charlie, Ron W., Ron B., Bill, Pat and Dick K. raked and collected leaves and debris while Urban and Gary worked on regraveling parts of the Japanese garden. Dave, Vern, Bob A. and Jim worked on repairing the Japanese garden fence while Maury, Big John, Rollie, Dick P. and Dick H. worked in the sunken garden (see below) excavating a ditch for a new power line wh
th Larry and myself. Over the past couple of years, our "Sunday Waterers" have been instrumental in helping out the gardens and keeping me from having to worry about weekend watering. Marv and Terry did a great job moving boulders out of our parking lot and smoothing over the gravel to
create more parking for our upcoming events. The guys moved to some other projects but ended up spending the afternoon watering our containers which were quite dry by the end of the day. Marianne spent lots of time in the front entrance garden and later helped with the upcoming iris sale. Larry was here for half a day and help the sunken garden crew, ran irrigation and accomplished some other projects. Janice popped in later in the afternoon for some preparations for the upcoming Garden Festival (Aug. 28th, 11am-4pm). Dr. Yahr was here to weed and prune while Dr. Gredler spent most of the day mowing and running loads of debris to the dump. We also saw Bev and Lisa popped in to talk daylilies as she helped with the recent daylily sale up at Olbrich by the WI Daylily Society. She picked up some neat ones for the gar
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