Above is one of the Jack o' lanterns carved by Marv this week. We had three groups of volunteers carve well over 300 pumpkins this week in anticipation of our Halloween Walk which starts tomorrow night (Thursday) and runs from 6:30 pm until 7:45 pm thru Saturday. This is a similar event to previous years and includes neat skits out in the gardens presented by Spotlight On Kids (SOK) performers. It is a wonderful event and the gardens are a nice setting for this historical partnership. I spent some time today running power cords and helping get organized for the event and will finish my contributions tomorrow. The SOK kids are very talented and I've always been impressed by these budding thespians. We've had a light touch of frost these past couple of mornings including this morning in the lowest areas of the garden. Below is copperleaf (
Alternanthera reinickii) with a light edging of frost.
We haven't had the killing frost yet but plants are sagging and wilting left and right. I'm very concerned about the lack of precipitation and many of our plants, while appearing to be frosted, are just plain
thirsty. We're keeping up watering containers and select plantings but our irrigation is off for the season and we hope Mother Nature will help out soon! It will be very important for woody plants, particularly conifers, to get ample moisture thru the fall before the ground freezes. Cons
idering watering your plants at home to help augment this lack of rainfall. Today was beautiful and despite the cold start which was expected, it was the perfect Autumn day out in the gardens. We did see some visitors and are hearing compliments despite the fact that we've removed over 40% of our annuals thus far. We had a group from the Chicago Botanic Garden visit earlier in the week and they enjoyed the garden. I believe it was some staff but also some of their volunteers. There is still plenty of late season interest out in the gardens like the fall color of the pond cypress (
Taxodium ascendens 'Debonair') seen to the left with its deciduous needles turning copper before dropping. To the right is the dwarf porcupine grass (
Miscanthus sinensis 'Goldbar') near the observation pier that has some significant horizontal banding. Our ornamental grasses are stealing the show right now as is our fall color. Directly below is the bright fall color of an ornamental pear (
Pyrus calleryana 'Autumn Blaze'). Despite having an odd form for a callery pear, this variety has some consistently nice fall color. Other varieties will have better form but lack the fall color. Further below are Janice's gourds placed on pallets for drying over the winter. The gourd project was fun and Janice and her gourd crew did a nice job. We enjoyed the cucumbers as well and are deciding on our vegetable collections for 2011.
Marv and Terry spent most of the day hauling back our large containers for storage. We have some very heavy concrete containers that required our end loader to bring back and the guys have always done a
nice job getting these cleared out and stored properly until next spring. Marianne jumped right in to lights testing and repair and spent the afternoon removing annuals and tidying up in the gazebo garden (which is the start of the Halloween Walk). She also cut and bundled papyrus for a homeschooling group that will use the stalks in a paper making project. Neat! Little Jerry continued to prune, tidy and cut back many of our ninebarks (
Physocarpus opulifolius). We cut all of our established ninebarks down to a foot each year and they bounce back to 5-7' each year. They don't resent the severe cutback. Big John hauled back obelisks and cleared them off as they will be quickly wrapped with lights and serve double duty in our Holiday Lights Show. Janice is our resident obelisk "wrapper" and they are quite nice as features for this event. Big John also watered containers, emptied/hauled containers and accomplished some other projects. Ron W. was in to put up t
ents (a day early!) for the Halloween Walk and is one of the few that can figure out how to put them up efficiently. Kay was here removing plants in the wishing well garden and Robin was doing the same thing in the entrance garden. We saw Mary H. cleaning up her area and Dr. Gredler was here mowing and collecting leaves all day. Dr. Yahr popped in and we also saw Roger, Urban and Rose too. It was a great day to garden and despite the mini-drought, we're fortunate to have such nice weather. To the above left is the silver cardoon (
Cynara cardunculus) arching over the 'Black Pearl' ornamental hot pepper (
Capsicum annuum). This is along the ornamental edible wall which is near the water and has escaped any frost damage thus far. I'm hearing 32 degrees F tonight so we'll see what things look like in the morning. We still have some tough blooms out there. To the right is a late-blooming monkshood (
Aconitum carmichaelii 'Barker's Variety') which I'm sure I show every year in the blog as it one of our latest bloomers that shrugs off all but the worst temperatures. Below is the dazzling fall color of another sugar maple (
Acer saccharum) in the woodland walk and the bottom picture is from yesterday, showing our volunteer Laurie working with Kyle removing annuals. Janice and Laurie worked with Kyle and Rachel who came from Shepherds College to spend some time with hands on horticulture activities. They did a great job and we appreciate their help and the assistance of both Janice and Laurie.
Above is one of the Jack o' lanterns carved by Marv this week. We had three groups of volunteers carve well over 300 pumpkins this week in anticipation of our Halloween Walk which starts tomorrow night (Thursday) and runs from 6:30 pm until 7:45 pm thru Saturday. This is a similar event to previous years and includes neat skits out in the gardens presented by Spotlight On Kids (SOK) performers. It is a wonderful event and the gardens are a nice setting for this historical partnership. I spent some time today running power cords and helping get organized for the event and will finish my contributions tomorrow. The SOK kids are very talented and I've always been impressed by these budding thespians. We've had a light touch of frost these past couple of mornings including this morning in the lowest areas of the garden. Below is copperleaf (Alternanthera reinickii) with a light edging of frost.
We haven't had the killing frost yet but plants are sagging and wilting left and right. I'm very concerned about the lack of precipitation and many of our plants, while appearing to be frosted, are just plain 
thirsty. We're keeping up watering containers and select plantings but our irrigation is off for the season and we hope Mother Nature will help out soon! It will be very important for woody plants, particularly conifers, to get ample moisture thru the fall before the ground freezes. Cons
idering watering your plants at home to help augment this lack of rainfall. Today was beautiful and despite the cold start which was expected, it was the perfect Autumn day out in the gardens. We did see some visitors and are hearing compliments despite the fact that we've removed over 40% of our annuals thus far. We had a group from the Chicago Botanic Garden visit earlier in the week and they enjoyed the garden. I believe it was some staff but also some of their volunteers. There is still plenty of late season interest out in the gardens like the fall color of the pond cypress (Taxodium ascendens 'Debonair') seen to the left with its deciduous needles turning copper before dropping. To the right is the dwarf porcupine grass (Miscanthus sinensis 'Goldbar') near the observation pier that has some significant horizontal banding. Our ornamental grasses are stealing the show right now as is our fall color. Directly below is the bright fall color of an ornamental pear (Pyrus calleryana 'Autumn Blaze'). Despite having an odd form for a callery pear, this variety has some consistently nice fall color. Other varieties will have better form but lack the fall color. Further below are Janice's gourds placed on pallets for drying over the winter. The gourd project was fun and Janice and her gourd crew did a nice job. We enjoyed the cucumbers as well and are deciding on our vegetable collections for 2011.
nice job getting these cleared out and stored properly until next spring. Marianne jumped right in to lights testing and repair and spent the afternoon removing annuals and tidying up in the gazebo garden (which is the start of the Halloween Walk). She also cut and bundled papyrus for a homeschooling group that will use the stalks in a paper making project. Neat! Little Jerry continued to prune, tidy and cut back many of our ninebarks (Physocarpus opulifolius). We cut all of our established ninebarks down to a foot each year and they bounce back to 5-7' each year. They don't resent the severe cutback. Big John hauled back obelisks and cleared them off as they will be quickly wrapped with lights and serve double duty in our Holiday Lights Show. Janice is our resident obelisk "wrapper" and they are quite nice as features for this event. Big John also watered containers, emptied/hauled containers and accomplished some other projects. Ron W. was in to put up t
ents (a day early!) for the Halloween Walk and is one of the few that can figure out how to put them up efficiently. Kay was here removing plants in the wishing well garden and Robin was doing the same thing in the entrance garden. We saw Mary H. cleaning up her area and Dr. Gredler was here mowing and collecting leaves all day. Dr. Yahr popped in and we also saw Roger, Urban and Rose too. It was a great day to garden and despite the mini-drought, we're fortunate to have such nice weather. To the above left is the silver cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) arching over the 'Black Pearl' ornamental hot pepper (Capsicum annuum). This is along the ornamental edible wall which is near the water and has escaped any frost damage thus far. I'm hearing 32 degrees F tonight so we'll see what things look like in the morning. We still have some tough blooms out there. To the right is a late-blooming monkshood (Aconitum carmichaelii 'Barker's Variety') which I'm sure I show every year in the blog as it one of our latest bloomers that shrugs off all but the worst temperatures. Below is the dazzling fall color of another sugar maple (Acer saccharum) in the woodland walk and the bottom picture is from yesterday, showing our volunteer Laurie working with Kyle removing annuals. Janice and Laurie worked with Kyle and Rachel who came from Shepherds College to spend some time with hands on horticulture activities. They did a great job and we appreciate their help and the assistance of both Janice and Laurie.
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