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Although the rain on Saturday morning thwarted our planting efforts, we caught up quickly today with planting and many other gardening tasks.  Both today and yesterday were hot and sunny although the temperature will dip down to the low 70 degrees F tomorrow for the high.  Directly above are the "orchid-like" blooms of the Northern catalpa (Catalpa speciosa) in the main parking lot.  This was one of the twelve, urban-tolerant trees that we planted last year (WI DNR funded grant) with an emphasis on their added value as an ash replacement if / when Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) starts depleting the local ash (Fraxinus) population.  Directly below is a colorful leaf from the 'Blazin' Rose' bloodleaf (Iresine hybrida) which is quite colorful and one of our favorite tropicals for part shade.  The next photo down shows the 'Ivory Silk' Japanese tree lilac (Syringa reticulata) blooming nicely in the Japanese garden.  The third photo down shows a bloom from the 'Orange Marmalade' Martagon lily (Lilium martagon) in the gazebo garden.

It was a busy Monday with many planting volunteers coming in to help out and catch up from the rainy Saturday.  Above are Chris (blue), August and Bob (right) planting their assigned garden space which is on the south side of the sunken garden.  They did a nice job and put in about 300 plants this morning after tidying up the space last week.  Below is our planting team of Ron W., Bev W., Shirley, Lee, Marilyn, Jim, Carol and Lloyd.  Cindy worked with them early but they shifted between three areas and planted almost everything I had placed out for Saturday morning.  The area below is just one of those locations.  Dr. Gredler was out mowing and we saw Karen M. pruning in the Japanese garden.  Ron Y., Jim, Dave and Vern continued carpentry projects including getting the new bridge ready for installation on Thursday.  Dick H. and Rollie helped the guys too.  Maury was in to clean out a fountain and Dick H. also made some runs to the dump and worked on the truck (second photo down).  Larry H., Gene and Bob C. mulched in the arboretum.  Tom C. was in for some electrical work.  Gary and Pat C. worked on creating and mounting new labels and we also saw Dick P., Janice and many others.

The hosta above is 'Venetian Lace'.  Our hostas are looking pretty good and we'll take a closer look at them Thursday evening when the Wisconsin Hosta Society comes to the gardens for a tour and lecture by me.  This is a fun group and they also donate plants and financial support to the gardens which is much appreciated.  The grounds staff was busy today with everyone having some watering to accomplish.  Larry ran irrigation, push mowed, weed whipped and helped with other projects.  Cindy planted, fertilized and watered.  Jenny did a thorough job of weeding the front entrance garden and fertilized it shortly thereafter.  Big John watered, edged, set up sprinklers, hauled gravel and worked on some other projects.  Terry also set up sprinklers, watered, did some major shearing and kept out of trouble.  I hauled out plants for planting tomorrow primarily in the edible garden and Rainbow Garden.  Below are some other features of possible interest.

golden spiderwort (Tradescantia x andersoniana 'Sweet Kate')

'Silberlocke' Korean fir (Abies koreana)

my containers with greens at home (will be planted with summer stuff soon)