Multi-Tasking

I think I observed all the major types of garden work today. There was planting, weeding, watering, mowing, fertilizing, etc. Our grounds staff on Tuesdays is fairly small so we do a lot of multi-tasking which is quite important. Our flexible staff is good at bouncing around and we, of course, had the help of another great group of volunteers today. The top picture shows some of the later blooming ornamental onions (Allium 'Ambassador') peaking out in the gardens. This is one of the latest blooming of the fall-planted ornamental onions and I like the tight sphere floating above the foliage. The grass in the background is the variegated Japanese silver grass (Miscanthus sinensis 'Variegatus'). The photo directly above is the Beijing Gold Peking tree lilac (Syringa pekinensis 'Zhang Zhiming') in the color rooms garden. This specimen should be in a sunnier location but still has some nice blooms and attractive, ornamental bark. To the right are the dangling, bright orange blooms of the 'Orange Marmalade' Martagon lily (Lilium martagon) in the gazebo garden. A grouping of three of these is quite eye catching and I look forward to them gaining size over the years. To the left is the showy leaf of the 'June Fever' plantain lily (Hosta). I wish hostas were still called funkias!

Larry worked on push mowing today as well as significant string trimming around the gardens. He also did quite a bit of watering as well as some chainsaw work in the arboretum on a damaged magnolia. Big John also watered, ran irrigation, fertilized, dug out dead roses and did a darn nice job rototilling and smoothing out our entrance garden slope. This is our largest annual bed and we'll be planting about 8,000 annuals out there this Saturday (June 9th) as part of our Volunteer Planting Work Day (8 am until 12 noon). Pat did a nice job watering, collecting debris, push mowing and ultimately ended up painting the gazebo. Check out the classic shot at the bottom of the arched bridge (in the distance) framed by the gazebo. This is the most vivid both these structures will be (until they're repainted in a couple years)! Janice spent most of the day planting in the Ornamental Edible & Compact Vegetable Display. She also planted the second of two pallet planters (see below), weeded the new moss garden and did some watering. I hauled plants out to three areas in anticipation of more planting tomorrow and spent some time with a backpack sprayer of herbicide. One of my many loads of plants can be seen below. To the right is the 'Joy of Spring' daylily (Hemerocallis) which has been blooming now for a couple of weeks and is one of our first to bloom in our daylily collection. We have about 400 varieties around the gardens and are a National Display Garden for the American Hemerocallis (daylily) Society. Above are Mary and Roy who were two of our many volunteers that helped out today. Mary and Roy planted a good portion of their shade garden section before moving on to the "orange border" planting above. They helped Kay who started planting this space early this morning and moved on to some tidying up in her portion of the shade garden. Janet M. came in later to help finish this planting as well. Hal and Doris finished planting annuals in their assigned garden area and it should turn out nicely with plenty of red and white. Dr. Gredler was in for mowing as was Bill O. Rose and Urban came in today and Urban spent most of the afternoon pruning some ailing birches (Betula). Mary W. came in later to help water the yard. We also saw Dr. Yahr, Maury, Tony F., Londa F., Vern, Dick P. and many others. To the right is the yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia punctata) which has beautiful, long-lasting blooms but a tendency to spread rampantly. There are some other variegated forms that have additional foliage appeal but have the same wandering tendencies. To the left is the patterned foliage of the variegated Southern catalpa (Catalpa bignonioides 'Variegata') which ultimately loses the variegation by July but is quite showy "in leaf" right now.

We have a group of seventh graders coming tomorrow to plant and I hope they are motivated to accomplish some serious planting. In the past, some of these volunteer experiences have been tougher than others in terms of training and continued enthusiasm. We'll also have some of our traditional Wednesday volunteers coming in to plant so we're looking forward to continued progress with our planting momentum. To the right is the perennial snow-in-summer (Cerastium tomentosum) which is in the alpine section of our Scottish garden. Directly below is the showy foliage of the 'Peach Whirl' copperleaf (Acalypha wilkesiana) which is part of the new Tiki series. We've grown lots of different copperleaf varieties at the gardens and this one is one of the most striking (located in our orange border planting).