Can You Look Cool In Hip Waders?

I think the answer to my blog title question is certainly "no". Above are Trevor (left) and Nolan who are leaving us this week after a great two months of helping out in the gardens. Both gentlemen are going to UW-Whitewater this fall and we wish them the best (with their fashion decisions as well). We still haven't had any real rain over the last 3 weeks or so and our duties out in the gardens continue to shift to more watering. We are now starting to water some areas that traditionally don't dry out and we're committed to keeping everything looking nice as I feel we are still at peak summer color. We had another great turnout of volunteers and the gardens were quite busy with visitors as well.

Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) - perennial

'Viette's Little Suzy' black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida var. speciosa) - perennial

'Benary's Giant Yellow' zinnia (Zinnia elegans) - annual

'Benary's Giant Orange' zinnia (Zinnia elegans) - annual

the terrace garden is looking quite colorful as seen above

As usual, our volunteers were a huge help today. Pat C. (above) put in a full day of label inventorying, label creation and she also continues to do a great job managing and organizing our surplus labels. Labeling at a garden of our size is extensive and keeping track of this process can be quite daunting (but not with Pat around!). Kathy and Eva were in for some weeding and tidying this morning and were later joined by Andrea. Cookie worked her kung fu in the North point garden. Stan was out in the Japanese garden tidying up and directly below is Shirley C. tending her assigned garden space which looks great. The second photo down shows Betty H. also tending her beautiful assigned garden. Don and Pearl (third photo down) continue to maintain their excellent border which really pops this year with dark maroon, yellow and lime! The fourth photo down shows Kelley tidying up her section of the shade garden where she was later joined by Sue M. Kay did a nice job tidying up an "area in need" and it looks spectacular now. Gena, Myrt, Nancy, Mary and Patty were all in for weeding and tiding this afternoon in the woodland walk garden. Marv was in to tidy up the moss areas and Maury came in after running some errands. Alan M. put in some time tidying paths which we appreciate! Bob C. mulched near the Horticulture Center and both Nancy and Joe came in to work in the Horticulture Center beds. We also saw Terry, Mike R. and many others today.

We had some VIPs "in the house" (or garden) today. Above are Amy F. (left) and Dr. Susan Mahr from UW-Extension checking out the gardens

Above is 'Silver Shimmers' lungwort (Pulmonaria) looking good in the summer heat. The grounds staff had a very busy day as well. Cindy helped continue tidying the terrace after our successful Gardening as Therapy symposium yesterday. She then headed in the to Smelly Garden theme of the Nancy Yahr Memorial Children's Garden for some watering and additional TLC. Big John was a watering whirlwind and had sprinklers up everywhere, ran irrigation, watered containers and had some other odd jobs. Cheryl worked on watering (containers too) and had some tidying time in the woodland walk garden. Trevor and Nolan helped with the repair of one of our waterfalls, cleaned up our water movers (hence the hip waders seen in the top photo) and both had other duties as well including watering and weed whipping. More fun photos from today can be seen below...