Pleasant Day But Rain Needed!

Above is the new, lower pool for the Japanese garden. This feature and the stream are essentially complete and the piping and pumps were tested over the weekend and everything went well. Below and to the left is the stream and small waterfall in action this morning. The last piece of this puzzle is the building of the new waterfall. We're excited about this project being completed in the next week or two and have already received many compliments on the progress and appearance of this renovated feature. To the right is one of the first squash (Cucurbita sp.) blossoms opening up in our squash collection at the Horticulture Center.

While I'm not ready to use the word "drought" yet, it is pretty dry out in the gardens in those areas that aren't irrigated. We've been running irrigation, sprinklers, etc. every day for two weeks and I feel like we're barely keeping up. We've resorted to more direct (and time consuming) hand watering of select areas that are showing severe plant stress from the lack of precipitation. While this isn't unusual for July, we hope that a good "soaking" rain will materialize over the next two days (only a 30% chance...). This heat has been good for our collections though as the annuals are really starting to take off. To the right is part of our All-America Selections and Fleuroselect collections continuing to fill in and offer color. Annuals can sure be thirsty though so we're continuing to keep up with watering our vast annual beds. With the holiday yesterday, we had a shift of grounds staff (from Monday to Tuesday) and Grumpies to this morning and we had another full crowd. Janice and Larry were in to water yesterday (Monday) while Big John was here Sunday with some volunteers to do some of the same. Below is the closed stage of the balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorus, variety unknown). Just beneath that shot is one of the blooms opened. They don't re-close but sure look neat prior to opening too! I always appreciate this perennial but it sometimes gets a bit floppy when it blooms and may require staking. That interesting closed flower is certainly intriguing too. Our grounds staff was busy today with Larry repairing irrigation and Pat and Big John pushmowing right away in the morning. Pat and John moved on to some watering duties (all containers) and spent some time digging out 'undesireables" in the English cottage garden. They are essentially digging out 80% of the plants in there; many of which have proven quite aggressive. Marv and Terry kept sprinklers running over a vast majority of our larger annual beds and did a nice job pruning/shaping some large burning bushes (Euonymus alatus). Marv and Terry also lowered a hanging basket from the pergola that has had duck eggs (recently hatched) and a momma up there for a month. The babies climbed out and everyone made it to the water. Janice helped get our volunteers situated, helped weed the fern/moss garden and moved on to watering as well. Marianne tidied in front of the building, did her cutting display, weeded the Smelly Garden and also did some watering too. I did two rounds of herbicide in some of our really weedy areas and went home early to work on a design for our future healing/wellness garden. With vacation looming for me next week, there is plenty to do this week including a talk on Friday for the Midwest Regional Hosta Society Conference in Madison, WI. To the left is the bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora) looking good with those long, vertical, white flower spikes. I've seen awesome specimens of this species at The Morton Arboretum (Lisle, IL) and the Missouri Botanic Garden (St. Louis, MO) but you have to make space for it as it is a very large (12'-15'), spreading shrub. Ours are still babies, for now... To the right is one of our effective container combinations with maroon Vertigo elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum 'Tift 8') and trailing begonias (Begonia boliviensis 'Bonfire').

Our volunteers were again, a huge asset today. We had plenty of Grumpies today. Maury and Dick P. drove to Sturtevant, WI to pick up some of our memorial bricks and are taking a look at our automated gate which has broken yet again. Rollie and Bill S. worked on spreading shredded bark with assistance from Gary. Ron W. and Dennis did a nice job sweeping up debris from our primary gardens and patio areas. Ron B. and Bob C. skimmed and replaced gravel along paths in the Japanese and fern & moss gardens with some help from Dick H. Dick H., Rollie and Bill S. shifted after break to help John and Pat excavate plants in the English cottage garden. Del watered the entire yard while Dave, Bob A. and Jim continued their carpentry projects. Kay was a weeding whirlwind today with her efforts in the fern/moss garden and she got some help from Dr. Yahr as well. Dr. Gredler was in to mow and we also saw Cathy I., Bill O, another Bill O., Art and many others. It was a very busy day and this week will involve many more projects and progress out in the gardens. As the first Wednesday of the month, tomorrow will be a "free day" and we hope to see many families at the gardens. The duck family below was sure enjoying the gardens today. The bottom picture is of the annual, dwarf morning glory (not a morning glory or a vine...). This is 'Royal Rose Ensign' (Convolvulus tricolor) and should be a nice border edger near the gazebo. The prolific blooms are about 2" in diameter. Come see our 850 varieties of annuals starting to fill out!