Today started with some rainfall and we thought we might have a wet day inside. The weather cleared quickly and we had an entire day with primarily overcast skies. It got extremely muggy and as I type this at 9:30 pm, it is raining outside and there has been thunder and tornado warnings. The image above was in the gazebo garden this morning and doesn't even show all the geese that came charging across the turf towards the pond. We seem to have three resident families of over 20+ geese total. They've been friendly enough but have been pecking away at some of our new annuals and are quite "messy". Nice shot below of the Noon Rotary Club members that came out to help plant this afternoon. We had Whitey, Hal, Maury, Gary, Ron and Heather. They did a nice job and the rains tonight should get everything soaked in nicely. It truly was a nice day of volunteerism and accomplishments aplenty. Marv and Terry sheared, rototilled, planted and bounced between many projects. They continue to be a nice team. Marianne planted, weeded, watered, did her cutting display and got thru everything I put on her list. Janice was here this morning and worked on creating signs, weeding and helping facilitate volunteers. Larry was all over the place with watering, repairs and other projects. Little Jerry worked on pruning various trees and shrubs. I kept placing more plants out in the gardens to address the remainder of our open spaces in need of annuals. Nice shot to the left of Quickfire hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata) which is known for blooming very early and I've always been impressed with it. To the right is our plantings behind the visitors' center. The wax begonias go very well with the bloody dock (Rumex sanguineus ssp. sanguineus). Nice shot below of a new red cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus 'Rubenza') that is a Fleuroselect winner and a big part of our red theme this year.
We had another great Grumpy turnout. Big John, Del, Rollie and Pat all worked on mulching on while Ron W. and Urban planted annuals with Mary. Dick H. worked on some repairs and Dave, Bob A., Vern and Jim continued their carpentry work. They've made some very nice gates for the new arbor. Gary and Dr. Yahr did some planting too and we also saw Maury, Dave, Mike, Julie, Geesje and many others too. I kept my camera close at hand today and was repeatedly glad that I did. Below and to the left is the 'Tropical Rose' canna which an All-America Selections winner and a canna that is easy to grow from seed (start it early though). This canna also stays around 36" and looks beautiful right now. Japanese beetles enjoy nibbling on cannas so hopefully they'll overlook these in our annual beds. To the right is the wooly sage (Salvia argentea) which is actually a zone 5 perennial. We grow it simply for the bold, white foliage that has everyone touching it. This specimen is in a cluster of containers in the middle of our English cottage garden and we've planted over 50 of these around the gardens primarily as an annual with significant foliage interest. Below is the golden spiderwort (Tradescantia x andersoniana 'Sweet Kate') with the nice combination of blue flowers and golden foliage.
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