A Welcome Rain Day

We had some nice overnight rain that persisted throughout the morning, took a break over the lunch hour, then returned to dribble thru the afternoon. Overall, I was pleased to have more precipitation but it was very cool today and quite a bounce from our recent July weather to early April weather! We didn't have to do any watering today including containers (which is a rare day). The bummer about the rain was our loss of another day of large scale planting. We normally would have had six to seven Grumpettes to help plant today and while we did have some Grumpies and other volunteers, it was a smaller crew than usual. Above is a shot of our pergola and French formal garden this morning with the Star of Persia ornamental onion (Allium christophii) in the foreground. To the right is the 'Pretty Belinda' yarrow (Achillea millefolium) in the formal perennial garden. To the left is Dick H. working on our Cushman utility vehicle this morning which has been having some issues recently. Dick is one of our "uber-handy" volunteers and seems able to fix just about anything. Dave, Jim, Bob and Vern had plenty of carpentry work to attend to in the Horticulture Center and more lumber arrived for some imminent repairs on the gazebo. Maury went on a plant run with Big John this morning and also went out for some vital supplies. We also saw Dave F., Rollie, Larry, Mary, Stan (seen below with Jumbo Jim) and Dr. Gredler was in for some projects and ultimately some mowing during the gap in the rain. Jumbo Jim had four RECAPPERS with him and they did a nice job tidying up the Japanese garden. To the right is the Armenian basketflower (Centaurea macrocephala) which has some very interesting flowers that are quite large (3" tall and wide). Further below Stan and Jim is a shot of the newly painted arched bridge which looks dynamite. Great job John and Pat. With additional painting help on the gazebo over the coming week or so, we'll have all our painting "targets" taken care of for the year. Yay! After his plant run (to the Flower Factory) with Maury, Big John worked on hauling and setting out impatiens in the large berm that we traditionally plant with a tapestry of impatiens. This is one of the few areas that gets the same treatment each year and the traditional display always turns out quite nicely. John also helped Janice plant the horizonal PVC tube planters, went on a major fuel run and ended up in the sunken garden pool cleaning out the pump filter on our fountain. All of the recent leaf, twig and cottonwood (Populus deltoides) seed debris keeps plugging up the filter but we think we'll be ok for the two weddings that will occur this Saturday. Janice spent some quality time sorting out our ornamental edibles, vegetables and other plantings that will soon go in to our Ornamental Edible & Compact Vegetable Display. She also selected plants/seeds for our PVC pipe planters and worked on many other projects as well. Jenny continued matching labels to our incoming plants and did a great job preparing our new perennial labels and creating labels as needed. To the above right is the 'Dark Towers' beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis) in a sizeable grouping near the North point garden. To the left is the light pink flower cluster of the Black Lace elderberry (Sambucus nigra 'Eva') which is one of the best shrubs for dark, textural foliage.

The rain day was timely for me in that I could chip away at my pile of desk work that I have to ignore this time of year as I'm running plants out in the gardens and trying to keep ahead of our planters. I finalized some details on the oak leaf garden art project and was able to set-up plants in many of our unplanted containers for Cora to plant tomorrow. I also walked thru the Japanese garden with Jumbo Jim and Stan and we formulated a plan of attack for our early summer pruning. To the right are the nicely margined leaves of the variegated Corneliancherry dogwood (Cornus mas 'Variegata'). Directly below is one of our oak leaf garden art projects (great job Phil!) and note the interesting detail in the bottom photo.