Last night I did my presentation on Late-Blooming Perennials at Olbrich Botanical Gardens (Madison, WI) for a crowd of about 30 attendees. Interestingly, two of the attendees (Deb and Charlotte) are RBG volunteers. The talk went well although my LCD projector blacked out and I'm afraid that there may be some damage to the unit (power surge?). They had a back up projector so the presentation continued, relatively uninterrupted. I was at Olbrich early and was able to walk the entire garden for the first time since early June. The garden looked great and I took over 200 pictures, some of which I've included below. The image at the t
op shows both Rose and Urban painting our east gate which was in need of the attention. Some of us actually liked the brownish primer color even more than the grey/blue paint that they were applying but regardless, it should look as good as new and thanks to Rose and Urban for their patience as we went in and out of that gate as they were painting. Directly above is a close-up of the blooms of the wand flower or gaura (Gaura linheimeri 'Siskiyou Pink') still blooming strong in the English cottage garden. This plant blooms for over three months out in the gardens and although a bit touchy on overwintering hardiness, will bloom until the first hard frost.It was an absolutely beautiful day and the grounds staff all did some top notch gardening today. To the left is Marianne who did a nice job tidying up the entrance 
garden and a good portion of the formal gardens. It's nice to just send her to an area knowing she'll do whatever needs to be done. She brought back plenty of loads of debris and installed another 50 or so new perennials in the English cottage garden (lots of delphiniums and some yarrow). To the right are Marv and Terry adjusting some stone edging. The guys also pruned back some woody plants, watered and worked on some edging. Big John dug out some woody tree seedlings, watered, planted shrubs and installed about 70 new perennials in the woodland walk garden. We had some nice donations from our plant sale vendors and still have quite a bit to plant over the next couple of weeks. I worked on sorting/sifting thru our remaining plants in the yard and we had two trucks stop by to pick up remaining plant sale items that will go back to our supportive vendors. We also had some shrubs and a hybrid elm (Ulmus) delivered. I am also working on finishing our bulb order for this fall (a bit late) and am almost done with a presentation on Healing Gardens that I'll present in Sheboygan next week and in Janesville in early November.
garden and a good portion of the formal gardens. It's nice to just send her to an area knowing she'll do whatever needs to be done. She brought back plenty of loads of debris and installed another 50 or so new perennials in the English cottage garden (lots of delphiniums and some yarrow). To the right are Marv and Terry adjusting some stone edging. The guys also pruned back some woody plants, watered and worked on some edging. Big John dug out some woody tree seedlings, watered, planted shrubs and installed about 70 new perennials in the woodland walk garden. We had some nice donations from our plant sale vendors and still have quite a bit to plant over the next couple of weeks. I worked on sorting/sifting thru our remaining plants in the yard and we had two trucks stop by to pick up remaining plant sale items that will go back to our supportive vendors. We also had some shrubs and a hybrid elm (Ulmus) delivered. I am also working on finishing our bulb order for this fall (a bit late) and am almost done with a presentation on Healing Gardens that I'll present in Sheboygan next week and in Janesville in early November.Dr. Gredler was in to mow and is collecting leaves out in the gardens as well. Kay was in to scour the Smelly Garden and North American garden for weeds and annuals that are ready for the compost heap. We also saw Dr. Yahr, Barb, Bill and Dick H. was in to run a couple loads of debris to the dump. The gardens continue to look colorful and it looks like next week will be quite warm. I'm targeting that week for another round of herbicide to get some of our later weeds and we'll continue our fall clean-up activities around the gardens. Next Wednesday night is the Ornamental Grasses talk by Nancy Nedveck of the Flower Factory at RBG (6 pm - 8 pm, free for RBG members, $5 for others). Check out www.rotarybotanicalgardens.org for information on our "fast-filling" fall symposium called Plant Appreciation. Below is an urn in the English cottage garden with leatherleaf sedge (Carex buchananii) as a centerpiece and the golden filler is the 'Molten Lava' ornamental shamrock (Oxalis vulcanicola) which looks great in part shade and is in many other locations around the gardens. Beneath this picture are some images from Olbrich Botanical Gardens which is another "must see" botanical garden only 50 minutes drive from Janesville. 
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