A Beautiful Day For Planting

We had an awesome turnout of volunteers today. The weather was perfect at 75 degrees F and was also very conducive to some major planting. The top picture is Mary Q. planting away this morning and she had the help of Bev, Ron W., Big John, Dr. Yahr and Ariel. They did a wonderful job finishing the planting in the eight formal annual sections (red themed). The picture directly above is of our Grumpy break and it was a full house today! Urban, Pat and Ron B. worked on clearing ornamental onion (Allium) stems and foliage around the gardens and later moved to clearing out more bulb foliage and weeds from one of our larger sections still left to plant. Speaking of ornamental onions, to the left is the blue globe onion (Allium azureum or Allium caeruleum). This "later blooming" onion has nice blue spheres on 24" stems. One of the considerations when planting this bulb (in fall) is that it does create lots of babies so watch out (and perhaps remove the flowers as they fade and prior to seed set). To the right is the fresh foliage of the 'Kopper King' hibiscus (Hibiscus hybrida) with prominent veination. This hibiscus dies to the ground each winter and comes up quite late (herbaceous perennial) and will be 4-5' tall with increasingly maroon foliage and huge July blossoms.

Ron Y., Bob C., Del and Bill S. worked on mulching the rose beds with cocoa bean hulls (see Ron below). We re-apply this mulch each year and use it as a cosmetic mulch (looks good) and does retain moisture. It's not my favorite mulch but certainly will hold up well thru the year. The guys later moved on to topdressing the arboretum tree circles with fresh shredded bark. Dave, Vern, Jim and Bob started working on the next batch of obelisks. Maury, Dick P., Dick H. and new Dick fixed our automated gate which unfortunately broke again later in the day. That gate is opened and closed each day at least 100 times which does produce some wear and tear. We'll have it serviced soon. Gary and Ariel planted in the reception garden early and shifted to other jobs. We also had Rita come in to work on preparing some labels (below and to the left). Marv and Terry spent most of the day clearing areas of bulb foliage and weeds, rototilling them up and smoothing them out for planting. This is very timely as it allows me to lay plants out in advance to keep ahead of our planters this week. The guys also did some watering as well. Larry weedwhipped, mowed, watered and helped with issues as they arose (and they always do!). Marianne tidied up the front garden with the help of Shirley and they had time to weed our front sign bed which was becoming engulfed in amaranths (Amaranthus) from last year's color scheme (maroon/red). Marianne also did her cutting display and watered the yard.

I spent the day running plants out to various areas and prepared for the Rotary Planting Workday. We ended up having nine volunteers (thanks Gary, Kelli, Millie, Russ, Tom, Whitey, Leslie, Dr. Yahr and Heather!) and while the turnout wasn't as much as we had hoped, the gang put lots of plants in the ground. To the right are Kelli and Millie and above is the gang planting annuals near the formal gardens. Directly below is Russ planting away this afternoon. The bottom photo is one I took at home this afternoon. The picture is a close-up of the bloom on some of my mesclun mix that is starting to bloom. I cut the greens this morning as the flavor will become less tasty as it gets hotter this summer. Normally, they should be cut earlier but I'm glad I ran across this bloom (about 1/3" in diameter).