Back In Action

I'm glad to be back at work although I'm still not feeling the best quite yet. My car windows all had light frost this morning as did the turf down at RBG (see above). These past two nights of low temperatures have tinged some annuals but overall, I'm surprised by how many will live yet another day and perhaps continue to contribute over these warmer days coming up soon. Last year, after some light frosts like this, we yanked out all of our annuals and regretted it after the rest of October went frost free. We're being more judicious with our removals and are targeting the worst of the bunch out there. The day warmed up nicely though and we saw many visitors thru the gardens. I hope people will take advantage of our "free day" tomorrow and come see the gardens. To the left is common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) with pods wide open and seeds with white floss ready to drift away in our prairie. Native Americans would use the fluffy floss in textiles and there are many historic uses for this plant as well. To the right is one of our hanging baskets at the pergola with the dangling aluminum plant (Dichondra argentea 'Silver Falls') cascading down 6' or so. These containers have been very eye catching and have been fairly low maintenance for us. Below is the next stage of the seating arbor that our carpenters are constructing out on "the point." They (Vern, Dave, Jim and Bob) are taking all efforts to be accurate and approach this project in manageable phases.We had a light staff day with Larry, Big John and Little Jerry here. Larry spent a good portion of the day weedwhipping then moved on to watering and running irrigation. Big John removed our pillars from out front where the annuals were cleared out yesterday (in anticipation of the bulb planting work day this Saturday). We received a lot of flack from a rental group that was incensed that we removed the FROSTED annuals prior to their event. Oh well. John spoke with them regarding our next plan to put in bulbs. He later moved on to planting and watering. Little Jerry pruned near the larch area and tidied up here and there. Dr. Gredler was here to mow and work on turf repair. Bill O. went around to collect debris and emptied the garbage/recycle bins. Kay spent time down in the wishing well garden removing frosted annuals and keeping things nice and tidy. We also saw Dave & Mary Hunt, Vern, Maury, Dave and Hal over here today as well. The grass to the left is the flame grass (Miscanthus sinensis 'Purpurascens') which gets a nice reddish fall color as the showy inflorescences (flower/seed heads) become quite conspicuous. This specimen was at Ron and Bev's house and really popped out to me. To the right are the late season blooms of the dark-leave fairy candle [Cimicifuga (Actaea) simplex 'Brunette] that also has maroon foliage. These are nice if you can avoid early frosts that might take them down. Below is the fall color of the Amur maple (Acer ginnala) in our Japanese garden. The more sun, the better the fall color with this species in particular. At the bottom is one of the "frosted" ornamental kales (Brassica sp.) that Marianne planted last week. Sure looks nice with a hint of frost and will tolerate everything Oct. and Nov. will throw at it.