Business As Usual Continues...

Today was unseasonably cool with a high around 75 degrees F. It looks like a cooler week although the weekend should be back to normal in terms of temperature. It was nice getting rain Saturday night (0.7 inches) as the gardens are nicely watered by Mother Nature and we didn't have to do too much additional watering today. Above is the Thomas Jefferson Collection which is really filling in nicely. A recent article in the Janesville Gazette has brought down many visitors to see this collection of 105 historic plants, all with descriptive signage. The green signs seen above are part of 13 total signs that all have a gardening quote from Thomas Jefferson. It was another typical Monday with lots of volunteers and the cooler weather made for a very pleasant day out in the gardens. Below are more photos from this morning.

the impatiens planting is really filling in nicely as seen above

'Bishop of Llandaff' dahlia (Dahlia) - annual

'Electric Blue Gecko' elephant ear (Colocasia esculenta)

We had a new volunteer today. Taylor can be seen above to the right. She did a great job weeding and despite working with Kathy and Patrea (also in the photo), we think she'll come back. The ladies did a great job weeding one of our larger flower beds that has become quite weedy. Bev W. (directly below) weeded her area in the sunken garden and installed a couple more plants. Shirley spent time weeding in the Scottish garden and Stan was in later for pruning/tidying in the Japanese garden. The second photo down shows Bob (driving) and Ron B. working on sweeping up paths. The next photo shows Larry H. (driving), Ron P. (standing) and Ron R. (the confused one) en route for some weeding duties after accomplishing some mulching. Kevin also worked on path tidying and Pat M. jumped in to a major weeding project. Jim, Vern and Ron Y. all worked on carpentry projects and Maury ran errands after cleaning up some of our fountains. Dr. Gredler was out mowing (fourth photo down) and Rollie stopped by (in that same photo). Gary worked on creating some new signage and helped with some details regarding the Home Garden Tour which went very well this past Saturday, July 12th. We also saw Ron W. Barb T., Bill O., Dr. Yahr and many others today.

Terry can be seen above touching up some recent hedge trimming. Terry also worked on edging, watering and many other duties. Cindy spent most of her time primping, priming and planting the "Pollinator's Paradise" theme in the Nancy Yahr Memorial Children's Garden. There will be no shortage of color in that garden setting which is also our All-America Selections (AAS) display and is entered in their annual Landscape Design Contest. The bulk of the plants in that garden are AAS winners and in regards to the contest...we're "in it to win it!" Larry worked on getting our "everflowing urn" water feature fixed and running. He also worked on some mowing and other duties. Big John did some rock work, pruned, watered and bounced between other projects as well. Jenny worked on minor planting and some significant weeding this morning. I placed more plants for installation this morning and spent the day getting ready for being gone this week on vacation. There are lots of lists, schedules and other factors involved with these preparations but the team always does well and is impressively self-sufficient. Below are more images from this morning.