What a nice day to relax in some Adirondack chairs and enjoy the view as the visitors above are doing! We have our chairs and benches placed and secured out in the North Point garden now and they wen
t in to immediate use with many enjoying the view and nice breeze coming across the water. It's unfortunate that we have to anchor all of our benches down but better safe than sorry! The image directly above shows three of the six activity stations that were part of our Smelly Garden event today. To the right is the bean bag toss board. I saw lots of children, parents and even general visitors enj
oying the Smelly Garden and engaging in the myriad activities and crafts. Kudos to Kris K. and her volunteer team (including Amanda) that helped facilitate this fun day out in the gardens. There are two other events being held in conjunction with this garden including another drop-in event and an adult event on Friday, August 19th from 8 pm - 10 pm (see our website) that should really catch some of the early evening scents out there (as well as food, drinks and music). It will be nice to do this garden theme again next year and get some momentum for visitors to come check out this neat garden space. It will not be identical next year as we'll include new scented plants and a modified planting plan.
To the left is a shot of our druid statue in the reception garden, surrounded by our pink theme this year. That garden continues to look better each week and while I do miss the blue and silver, this s
cheme certainly worked and created a new look in a garden that used to be fairly predictable. To the right is the 'Candy Roaster' winter squash growing well over at the Horticulture Center. There are already some good sized squash forming and I look forward to seeing them turn pinkish (with orange flesh). These can get enormous and are great for baking and pies. This is just one of many that we're featuring this year.
cheme certainly worked and created a new look in a garden that used to be fairly predictable. To the right is the 'Candy Roaster' winter squash growing well over at the Horticulture Center. There are already some good sized squash forming and I look forward to seeing them turn pinkish (with orange flesh). These can get enormous and are great for baking and pies. This is just one of many that we're featuring this year.We had a nice volunteer turnout with Kay working her "weeding kung fu" in the fern & moss garden, Japanese garden and North American garden. Carrie was also in to weed. Dr. Gredler worked on mowing and some other small projects while Vern was in to continue working on new signs for the Smelly Garden. We also saw Bill O., Dr. Yahr and had our Garden Development & Maintenance Committee meeting which included Dr. Yahr, Dr. Gredler, Hal, Maury, Dick P., Big John, Iza, Joanne, Carrie, Kelli and me. Nice shot below of one of the new, 8' long, custom-made (by Grumpies!) cedar bench. Marv and Terry placed these yesterday and Larry finished securing them today.
Above is the beautiful 'Matsumoto Blue' Chinese aster (Callistephus chinensis) that is "peppered" throughout our blue and yellow theme this year. Note the y
ellow center and blue flower petals! Chinese asters typically don't bloom until August but offer some great coloration to the later season garden. These just started opening up last week. I never mind dedicating the space to Chinese asters as they make up for those "green months" by really becoming eye catching during one of the tougher gardening months when some other plants are fading. This variety is 30" tall and those flowers are great in fresh arrangements as well. Chinese asters, while available in most seed catalogs, are frequently not sold as plants at garden centers as they are not "instant sp
ring color." Too bad. To the right is our central urn under the pergola in the French formal garden. The centerpiece, elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum 'Vertigo'), is looking nice as are the petunias and sweet potato vines (Ipomoea batatas). This sweet potato variety is 'Sweet Caroline Sweetheart Red' and is thriving in many locations around the gardens (including the reception garden and our "red wall planting"). This has been a good year for sweet potato growth although the Japanese beetles enjoy them for a snack as well. To the left is the old-fashioned flowering woodland tobacco (Nicotiana sylvestris) which offers wonderful scent in the evening. This tall annual (6') has interesting blooms but understand they drop a lot of seed that will germinate next year. As the blooms start to finish on this plant this time of year, we'll cut the primary stalk down to the bottom set of leaves and can expect new growth and fresh fl
owering within a couple weeks that will extend interest (and scent!) until hard frost. We have many Nicotiana species and varieties in our Smelly Garden as well.
It was a light staff day and we had no shortage of projects. Larry ran some irrigation today although we had some decent rain last night. Larry also worked on securing our new benches and chairs in the North Point garden and he shifted to pruning in the Japanese garden. Big John dug up tree seedlings, edged back the English cottage lawn circle and did a nice job clearing some less than exciting annual pockets and filling in with some zinnias (part of our "back ups" for instances such as this). Janice went thru the ornamental edible collection, tidying up and picking lots of produce for the area food banks. She also worked on some weeding and other tasks. I had some meetings and am getting our fall plant sale details finalized (advertising, vendors, etc.). While August is a "slow" month, September and October get crazy very quickly. Nice shot to the right of a composition I photograph every year. In the front is a compact black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida var. speciosa) called 'Viette's Little Suzy'. In the back left is the Tiger Eyes sumac (Rhus typhina 'Bailtiger') and to the back right, the upright feather reed grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster'). That obelisk sure adds to the scene as well. This is in the wishing well garden (Smelly Garden currently). Directly below are six of the eight new Adirondack chairs (see the red ones in the top image). The view is spectacular from this location. At the bottom is a nice shot of the pergola with the hanging baskets looking good. Hard to believe we had a mother duck nesting in one of these not more than a couple months ago!
Above is the beautiful 'Matsumoto Blue' Chinese aster (Callistephus chinensis) that is "peppered" throughout our blue and yellow theme this year. Note the y
ellow center and blue flower petals! Chinese asters typically don't bloom until August but offer some great coloration to the later season garden. These just started opening up last week. I never mind dedicating the space to Chinese asters as they make up for those "green months" by really becoming eye catching during one of the tougher gardening months when some other plants are fading. This variety is 30" tall and those flowers are great in fresh arrangements as well. Chinese asters, while available in most seed catalogs, are frequently not sold as plants at garden centers as they are not "instant sp
ring color." Too bad. To the right is our central urn under the pergola in the French formal garden. The centerpiece, elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum 'Vertigo'), is looking nice as are the petunias and sweet potato vines (Ipomoea batatas). This sweet potato variety is 'Sweet Caroline Sweetheart Red' and is thriving in many locations around the gardens (including the reception garden and our "red wall planting"). This has been a good year for sweet potato growth although the Japanese beetles enjoy them for a snack as well. To the left is the old-fashioned flowering woodland tobacco (Nicotiana sylvestris) which offers wonderful scent in the evening. This tall annual (6') has interesting blooms but understand they drop a lot of seed that will germinate next year. As the blooms start to finish on this plant this time of year, we'll cut the primary stalk down to the bottom set of leaves and can expect new growth and fresh fl
owering within a couple weeks that will extend interest (and scent!) until hard frost. We have many Nicotiana species and varieties in our Smelly Garden as well.
It was a light staff day and we had no shortage of projects. Larry ran some irrigation today although we had some decent rain last night. Larry also worked on securing our new benches and chairs in the North Point garden and he shifted to pruning in the Japanese garden. Big John dug up tree seedlings, edged back the English cottage lawn circle and did a nice job clearing some less than exciting annual pockets and filling in with some zinnias (part of our "back ups" for instances such as this). Janice went thru the ornamental edible collection, tidying up and picking lots of produce for the area food banks. She also worked on some weeding and other tasks. I had some meetings and am getting our fall plant sale details finalized (advertising, vendors, etc.). While August is a "slow" month, September and October get crazy very quickly. Nice shot to the right of a composition I photograph every year. In the front is a compact black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida var. speciosa) called 'Viette's Little Suzy'. In the back left is the Tiger Eyes sumac (Rhus typhina 'Bailtiger') and to the back right, the upright feather reed grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster'). That obelisk sure adds to the scene as well. This is in the wishing well garden (Smelly Garden currently). Directly below are six of the eight new Adirondack chairs (see the red ones in the top image). The view is spectacular from this location. At the bottom is a nice shot of the pergola with the hanging baskets looking good. Hard to believe we had a mother duck nesting in one of these not more than a couple months ago!
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