The Last Plant Sale Day

The aster shot above was from this morning in the entrance garden. I'm not sure what variety this is but asters sure offer late color although many can be tall, floppy and in need of staking. Although overcast today, we haven't seen rain yet and hope to have a successful last day of the sale. Yesterday was essentially a "rain out" for the sale and most outdoor garden activity. So far, the traffic has been steady and we hope that continues. Once the sale ends, we'll spend the rest of the week inventorying, sorting and dismantling tents, etc. By next week, the sale should be a memory and overall, we're pleased with how well the sale did this year although we always hope to have sold more plants. See to the above left for one of my favorite borders this year near the wishing well garden. The reddish daisies in the foreground are the 'Cherry Brandy' gloriosa daisies (Rudbeckia hirta) which are annuals. This border just has a perfect mix of flower and foliage with the feather reed grasses (Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster') offering vertical punctuation. The border to the right is another shot of the terrace garden periphery that echoes that pink and chartreuse theme. Those huge purple grasses repeated along the back are elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum 'Prince') that we have grown up over 8' in some areas. Although we don't see any flowers, the sheer mass is impressive! Flowers are great but look for other ornamental features from plants. Below are the spiky seed capsules of the castor bean (Ricinus communis 'Carmencita Pink'). The seeds in these capsules are poisonous but few would disagree that this isn't an ornamental feature of that plant.
Marv and Terry have been working on dealing with path washouts and debris out in the gardens that resulted from the heavy rains. Marianne started up the plant sale and has periodically ducked in to the gardens to get some work done. Little Jerry worked in the alpine garden, Hosta Hollow and Japanese garden with various projects and Dr. Gredler has been mowing and working on additional seeding and turf repair. I've been catching up on more deskwork which is well over 50% of my job this time of year (napping being the other 50%). Sandy is helping all day with the plant sale and Chuck and Bev have been in to help. Kay came in today to work on weeding and cutting back some irises (see below). She is also tidying around the terrace in preparation for our volunteer cookout tonite. The bottom image shows one of our latest blooming perennials which should be looking good in to October. This is a toadlily (Tricyrtis hirta 'Miyazaki') which, while having smaller, intricate blooms, there is such a profusion of flowers on arching stems that they really stand out in the late garden.