Progress On All Fronts

Above is a nice shot of the pagoda in the Japanese garden this morning. I spent some time spraying herbicide in this garden with a focus on some of the stubborn "carpet weeds" that have popped up in many locations. Today was sunny and cool with temperatures in the upper 70 degrees F. It was the perfect day to focus on weeding, trimming, planting and watering. We had a nice balance of all four tasks today. This time of year is still important for installing plants but we can't let the weeds get too far ahead either. The grounds staff had a busy day today with the exception of Janice (see below) who had Mike M. follow her with this umbrella and Amy (left) filming everything she did. Mike and Amy were there from UW-Extension to film footage for some future training/educational videos. I know they filmed most of the gardening staff out in the gardens. Janice also watered, worked in the moss garden, worked on signs and the cutting display. Cindy (second photo down) fertilized, scraped up weeds, worked on the cutting display and did a nice job diving in to the weeds that are emerging in the All-America Selections display garden. Pat (third photo down) was back in action and jumped in to cutting back bulb foliage, push mowing, watering and shearing burning bushes (Euonymus alatus) as seen in the photo. Larry ran irrigation, helped repair a vehicle with Dick H., watered and worked on moving boulders with John in the Japanese garden to make room for our new (and wider) bridge. Big John helped with the boulder project but also watered, edged, push mowed, etc. Cheryl did a nice job weeding the front sign area which was overrun with purslane (Portulaca oleracea). She also watered later in the day. I placed plants, sprayed herbicide, watered and prepared for our Home Garden Tour (HGT) potluck this evening. The HGT is coming up on July 20th and details can be seen on our website. Don't miss the Garden Gala on July 13th either!

We had a solid group of volunteers today as well. Above is the 'Lanai Candy Cane' verbena (Verbena) which is one of the four selections in our American Garden Award display garden which was mentioned on one of the local radio stations today. Visitors can vote on their favorite of the four selections and results are ultimately tallied. Check out www.americangardenaward.com/ for more information on this display contest and the history of the program. Many of our volunteers are featured below. We had Kay, Eva and Leslie in for planting this morning and they were later joined by Jackie. Rose was in for painting and Pat C. continued her work on our labeling program. Dick H. came in to do some major repairs on one of our garden vehicles (thanks Dick!) and Ron Y. was in after lunch for some carpentry. Dr. Gredler and Bill O. did their mowing rounds out in the gardens. Cookie and Resa came in to weed and tidy up the North point garden; their assigned garden space. Betty H. and I went around to look at possible areas for she and her friend Shirley to maintain and I think we found some fun and challenging locations. Gina G. watered all the veggies at the Horticulture Center. Chuck S. helped with a tour and this was his first group of visitors that utilized the mobile cart tour. We also saw Dr. Yahr, Art H. and many others. Further below are more beautiful flowers out in the gardens. The last two are part of our All-America Selections (AAS) display which also includes another 148 varieties, all chronologically displayed.