As I type this blog in the early afternoon at the Horticulture Center, I'm the only one left at the facility after driving rains and high winds encouraged everyone else to call it a day. Work out in the gardens will resume tomorrow but the weather warnings were significant enough to warrant calling this an "early day"! Regardless, we welcome the rain but will likely have plenty of branches to collect tomorrow. As the storm arrived, I was talking to Dennis Hermsen at the gardens who owns a nursery in Iowa. Apparently they received some damaging weather and he needed to head home for clean up and repairs immediately. We did get a couple of hours in before the rains arrived though and the gardens looked nice. Above is a view in the formal gardens with baby's breath (Gypsophila sp.) just starting to bloom in the foreground. Below are some additional photos from today.
'Hartlage Wine' sweetshrub (Calycanthus x raulstonii) - woody shrub
Armenian basketflower (Centaurea macrocephala) - perennial
Apricot Drift shrub rose (Rosa 'Meimirrote')
Korean bellflower (Campanula takesimana) - perennial
Our stalwart volunteers this morning included Taylor (mom) and Justine seen above. The ladies did a great job and planted over 100 cannas in the Alphabet Jungle Garden before it rained. Justine (see below) had a great time and did an excellent job (see below). The second photo down shows our carpenters (Jim, Dave and Ron Y., left to right) continuing repairs on the back porch. Bob K. was back at the shop working on projects as was Pat M. Dick H. ran to the dump and Ron P. headed out for more re-graveling on the paths. Maury (third photo down splashing water at my expensive camera) ran errands and cleaned up some of the water features. Dr. Gredler and Rollie were in for mowing and we also saw Dr. Yahr. Shirley (fourth photo down) did a nice job weeding near the sunken garden and Kathy and Eva were weeding near the Scottish garden. Magda was in for planting and came back after the rains to finish up. We also saw Dr. Yahr and many others today.
Despite the abbreviated day for the grounds crew, they had a productive "pre-storm" morning. Cindy hauled plants and planted in the Smelly Garden theme of the Nancy Yahr Memorial Children's Garden. Big John hauled plants, worked on some removals and bounced between some other projects with Terry who worked on the rose collection and some other duties. Larry checked water features, irrigation repair and other tasks. I chipped away at my office work and we had a meeting of our Horticultural Therapy Committee which also included Darcie, Art, Linda, Janice, Mary W., Elaine and Karen. We're moving in to heavy promotion for our August 11th event, Gardening as Therapy, with details on our website for this exciting educational, "hands on" event. I didn't take many photos today so included some from Allen Centennial Gardens (ACG) below which I took yesterday. ACG is a 2.5 acre garden on the UW-Madison campus which packs a lot of "horticultural punch" in a small space.
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