We had another very successful planting work day today. The skies were overcast all morning and while
I worried about rain, it never materialized although there was a very light mist at one point. The top picture shows Lily who was a big help today. She helped to plant and when I took the picture above, she was sorting our empty containers. She really got in to helping out and I think her traditional pink frosted donut at break was very well earned.
The image directly above shows the fourth area planted by our great volunteers. This is our "impatiens berm" and has been planted that way for many years. The gang planted 3,000 impatiens in that bed and Big John and a couple volunteers stayed an additional hour just to make sure it was finished. I spent most of yesterday laying out two large beds in our entrance garden for the group to start on this morning. Both these beds will have the blue and yellow theme and I'm sure I spaced out about 10,000 annuals. I couldn't believe how fast our crew went thru those two areas! We had 27 volunteers and staff included Janice, Big John, myself and Larr
y was bouncing between helping us out and doing his traditional Saturday tasks like cleaning up wedding gardens, checking water features, etc. The first two areas were planted by 9 am so the gang moved to the reception garden where I had already arrived to lay out more plants. To the left are Luis and Mary planting in the reception garden. To the right is the golden hops vine (
Humulus lupulus 'Nugget') which is vigorous and has nice foliage until the Japanese beetles track it down in summer. To the left are the pure white flower clusters of the Japanese snowball viburnum (
Viburnum plicatum 'Popcorn') that comes well by its name! The teamwork exhibited today was neat to observe as our projects involved more than just planting. We had people (Lily) collecting empty pots, flats, labels, etc, while others swept up and still others watered. We really finished an area, cleaned it up and finished each project in an orderly fashion. Bill O. was here to tidy up out in the garden and Karen M. was raking the paths in the Japanese garden. We saw Urban sanding one of our gates in preparation for Rose's "painting attention" next week. I'm missing a couple of names of our planters but do thank them along with Mary, Gena, Dennis, Luis, Laura, Gary, Bev, Ron, Jody, Big John, Janice, Lily, Sue, Ariel, Mary Q., Magda, Bob C., Margaret, Maggie (on her birthday!), etc. After break, Laura led a crew to start on the impatiens berm mentioned earlier. I kept up with the reception garden volunteers as they finished and Janice took a small crew down to the fern & moss garden to weed and plant lots of plugs of golden Irish moss (
Sagina subulata 'Aurea'). Very moss-like in appearance, this wispy, flowering groundcover has a nice chartreuse coloration and established patches already in that garden "glow" this time of year. I ordered about 300 plugs that Janice and crew finished planting today. Above and to the right is a shot a took of the Ma' Chii in the distance with lots of primroses (
Primula sp.) in the foreground. Directly below is one of the first large beds planted and is right along the road (Palmer Drive).
Above is Laura planting out front. I hope our next three Saturday workdays (8 am - noon) have similar at
tendance as we still need to plant a good portion of the gardens. I save the larger areas for these larger volunteer groups and we still have areas like the "Smelly Garden", terrace garden, ornamental edibles/compact vegatables, e
tc. Tomorrow Big John and our Sunday watering team will be at RBG in the morning. Larry and Elaine S. will be in on Monday to take care of watering needs. With the temperature prediction of 91 degrees F on Monday, I'm glad I wont have to worry about watering as it is covered. Finally! Two sequential days off. Today was the last day of our compost sale and Carol C. had some sales. However, we still have some bags left over that we'll sell thru the summer and carry them over to our fall sale (Sept. 10-11). I did keep my camera with me all morning and was able to take photos of volunteers and plants alike. To the left is the dark maroon foliage of the 'Obsidian' coral bells (
Heuchera) which I think may be the darkest of all the maroon coral bells. To the right are the front line planters just starting the impatiens berm after break. It was a great day. Further below is Ariel, our intern, who came out to help today. To the right is a close up of the exquisite gas plant (
Dictamnus albus 'Rubra'). That neat foliage is from a variegated Japanese tree lilac (
Syringa reticulata 'Golden Eclipse') that should also bloom in about 2 weeks.. At the bottom is neat shot in the fern & moss garden late this morning.
I worried about rain, it never materialized although there was a very light mist at one point. The top picture shows Lily who was a big help today. She helped to plant and when I took the picture above, she was sorting our empty containers. She really got in to helping out and I think her traditional pink frosted donut at break was very well earned. 
The image directly above shows the fourth area planted by our great volunteers. This is our "impatiens berm" and has been planted that way for many years. The gang planted 3,000 impatiens in that bed and Big John and a couple volunteers stayed an additional hour just to make sure it was finished. I spent most of yesterday laying out two large beds in our entrance garden for the group to start on this morning. Both these beds will have the blue and yellow theme and I'm sure I spaced out about 10,000 annuals. I couldn't believe how fast our crew went thru those two areas! We had 27 volunteers and staff included Janice, Big John, myself and Larr
y was bouncing between helping us out and doing his traditional Saturday tasks like cleaning up wedding gardens, checking water features, etc. The first two areas were planted by 9 am so the gang moved to the reception garden where I had already arrived to lay out more plants. To the left are Luis and Mary planting in the reception garden. To the right is the golden hops vine (Humulus lupulus 'Nugget') which is vigorous and has nice foliage until the Japanese beetles track it down in summer. To the left are the pure white flower clusters of the Japanese snowball viburnum (
Viburnum plicatum 'Popcorn') that comes well by its name! The teamwork exhibited today was neat to observe as our projects involved more than just planting. We had people (Lily) collecting empty pots, flats, labels, etc, while others swept up and still others watered. We really finished an area, cleaned it up and finished each project in an orderly fashion. Bill O. was here to tidy up out in the garden and Karen M. was raking the paths in the Japanese garden. We saw Urban sanding one of our gates in preparation for Rose's "painting attention" next week. I'm missing a couple of names of our planters but do thank them along with Mary, Gena, Dennis, Luis, Laura, Gary, Bev, Ron, Jody, Big John, Janice, Lily, Sue, Ariel, Mary Q., Magda, Bob C., Margaret, Maggie (on her birthday!), etc. After break, Laura led a crew to start on the impatiens berm mentioned earlier. I kept up with the reception garden volunteers as they finished and Janice took a small crew down to the fern & moss garden to weed and plant lots of plugs of golden Irish moss (Sagina subulata 'Aurea'). Very moss-like in appearance, this wispy, flowering groundcover has a nice chartreuse coloration and established patches already in that garden "glow" this time of year. I ordered about 300 plugs that Janice and crew finished planting today. Above and to the right is a shot a took of the Ma' Chii in the distance with lots of primroses (Primula sp.) in the foreground. Directly below is one of the first large beds planted and is right along the road (Palmer Drive). 
tendance as we still need to plant a good portion of the gardens. I save the larger areas for these larger volunteer groups and we still have areas like the "Smelly Garden", terrace garden, ornamental edibles/compact vegatables, e
tc. Tomorrow Big John and our Sunday watering team will be at RBG in the morning. Larry and Elaine S. will be in on Monday to take care of watering needs. With the temperature prediction of 91 degrees F on Monday, I'm glad I wont have to worry about watering as it is covered. Finally! Two sequential days off. Today was the last day of our compost sale and Carol C. had some sales. However, we still have some bags left over that we'll sell thru the summer and carry them over to our fall sale (Sept. 10-11). I did keep my camera with me all morning and was able to take photos of volunteers and plants alike. To the left is the dark maroon foliage of the 'Obsidian' coral bells (Heuchera) which I think may be the darkest of all the maroon coral bells. To the right are the front line planters just starting the impatiens berm after break. It was a great day. Further below is Ariel, our intern, who came out to help today. To the right is a close up of the exquisite gas plant (Dictamnus albus 'Rubra'). That neat foliage is from a variegated Japanese tree lilac (Syringa reticulata 'Golden Eclipse') that should also bloom in about 2 weeks.. At the bottom is neat shot in the fern & moss garden late this morning.
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