Crisp Autumn Air

It was another frosty morning although a couple flowers continue to hang in there like the pinks (Dianthus sp.) seen above and the red scabious (Knautia macedonica) seen below. We haven't had a hard frost yet but I imagine we'll see it soon with lowering evening temperatures. The weather warmed nicely and we had another excellent day for gardening and progress on the Holiday Light Show (HLS). It was a productive day and we had some excellent volunteers help with gardening duties today. We hope to have the HLS ready to go by early next week.

frost on Black Lace elderberry (Sambucus nigra 'Eva') - woody shrub

frost on lamb's ears (Stachys byzantina) - perennial

frost on rock jasmine (Androsace sp.) - perennial

Our volunteers took a nice dent out of our gardening duties today. Kathy and Eva did a super duper job collecting MANY loads of leaves and debris along the woodland walk garden where leaves have continued to accumulate. Above is Kay who continues to do an excellent job tidying up the Scottish garden and near vicinity. Below is Urban back in action pruning our crabapple (Malus) suckers which is an annual tradition. Jenny came in to put in some labels and check over the hosta hollow garden. Joe was in to continue working on deer fencing and Maury ran many errands for us. We also saw Gary, Dick P., Christine R., Christy and many others. The second photo down show our Marketing Director, Sue, sizing up the "santa house" for decorating for the HLS.

Our grounds staff of Big John, Cindy, Larry H., Bob K. and myself focused primarily on HLS tasks. We continue to put out more cords, tweak luminaries, install lights and displays but see "light at the end of the tunnel". We hope to have some decent weather tomorrow before it rains later in the day.