Another Frantic Friday

Today involved lots of frantic activity getting ready for an early wedding out in the new North Point Garden (10:30 am this morning!) and getting our usual Friday mowing, watering and other chores completed. The top picture is our Smelly Garden which has really filled out quite nicely. There is a family "drop in" activity this Monday, November 8th (see our website) featuring this space and there are other opportunities later in the month to enjoy it as well (see RBG website for August 19th adult event). A reporter from NBC Channel 15 (Madison) was down today to interview Kelli and me and took some nice footage of this garden as well as may other locations too. I think the interview/footage will run early this Monday morning (August 8, 6:30 am?). I was watering in the Smelly Garden this afternoon when a visitor came in and asked about the garden. I assured her it wasn't the Smelly Garden because of me and a full day of being out in the heat and humidity! It will be nice to really funnel people in to this space and learn what's working for our programming as we'll have the Smelly Garden next year too but will certainly modify the plants a bit too (more lilies for sure!) and refine the intepretation and programming. The second image down is the formal gardens looking nice and neat. To the above right is an example of one of our new labels in action and we're already receiving some nice compliments regarding the upgrade. Kudos to Gary and all those involved (Jenny, Janice, Marianne, Mandy, Rita, Ariel, etc.) with these upgrades. We still have many new labels to "swap out" with the old but we've more than reached my goal for 2011 thus far in terms of production. Our previous Executive Director, Dave, and his wife Deb were in the gardens today and commented on the professional appearance of these labels. To the left is an eggplant (Solanum melongena 'Ophelia') that is part of our Ornamental Edible & Compact Vegetable collection (also filmed by NBC Channel 15 today!). Now that is an ornamental fruit! 'Ophelia' has very small "mini-fruits" that are the size of an oblong tennis ball. This size eggplant is called a "single serving size" fruit. Pretty cool. To the lower right, in that same garden space, is a classic foliage combination of the silver foliage cardoon (Cynara cardunculus), which is a close artichoke relative, and the deep maroon of the burgundy pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum 'Purple Majesty'). You can't go wrong with this combo and this is a good example demonstrating the value of foliage combinations. Speaking of cool foliage combinations, the vertical wall below was at the Ball Seed Trial Gardens yesterday. They had many different vertical walls although this one was constructed with Woolly Pockets (www.woollypockets.com) which I plan on looking in to this winter. The weight involved with this planting and appropriate support would be my primary concerns but WOW does that look nice. This was in a shaded sitting area. Above is another image from the bus trip yesterday. Cantigny Gardens (www.cantigny.org) has a 1 acre "Idea Garden" that was really neat. Although perfect for children, this garden had lots of interesting plantings and gardening tips for all visitors. I thought the "green roof" on this little birdhouse was neat! To the right are the substantial flower plumes of the grain amaranth (Amaranthus cruentus 'Hot Biscuits') which is one of my favorite annuals for later summer interest. These plants get up around 6' tall and offer an interesting amber/orange look. The the left are the spherical blooms of a new globe amaranth (Gomphrena globosa 'Audray White') which is in our trialing area. These blooms, on a 14" tall plant, are long-lasting and good in both fresh and dried arrangements. Last year we had a huge collection of globe amaranths (same family as the 'Hot Biscuits' seen here incidentally!), and enjoyed their contributions in the garden. Never forget white in your garden!

Marv, Marianne and I came in early to get a jump on the day with Janice not far behind. Marv was a whirlwind of running irrigation, placing/moving sprinklers, watering containers and he even found the time to edge some paths (nice job as always). Marianne was just as busy with hand watering, container watering, her cutting display and tidying the entrance garden. I pushmowed, watered and bounced between some other projects including the NBC15 gig. Today was the most I've been outside in a month and it was nice to get "reconnected." Janice also pushmowed, watered,fertilized and tidied up the edible garden. We had some great volunteer help today with Kay rotating around the North American garden weeding the beds that Marv wasn't watering. He did get her good with the sprinkler though but Kay is a good sport. She filled a couple cart loads as did Shirley who was weeding in the color rooms garden and Scottish garden. Magda was in to touch up her area and we saw Don and Pearl C. weeding their border along the shade garden. Dr. Gredler was in for his Friday mowing and Dr. Yahr was in to pot up some aquatic plants that he placed in the koi pond cylinder (spillway) for interest. Dick H. popped in briefly and Vern was in to paint some new signs for the Smelly Garden. Bill O. was in to mow the arboretum (etc.) and helped us water as well (thanks Bill!!!). To the right is a neat runner bean (Phaseolus coccineus) called 'Sunset' that exhibits a shell-pink bloom as opposed to the standard scarlet runner bean blossom which is red. This vine will also produce edible beans shortly and may attract a hummingbird or two in the meantime. What a neat shade of pink and an exquisite bloom. Directly below is the showy (and edible) flower umbel (cluster) for the perennial bronze fennel (Foeniculum vulgare 'Smokey'). The dusky, wispy foliage is also quite showy. The bottom photo, taken yesterday, is one of my better shots of our entrance garden slope and the successful blue/yellow theme. Note that the golden lace vines (Fallopia aubertii 'Lemon Lace') are doing a nice job of tranforming those blue pyramids in to gold!