Hitting Stride

I think the gardens are nearing their summer peak in August this year. It's looking pretty good out there. After being gone a week on vacation, I couldn't believe how our annual plantings have filled in and how green the gardens look after some rainfall last week. As usual, I arrived to piles of "catch up duty" but was able to tour the gardens. Everything looked great which was no surprise. With another warm day today, watering again became a priority. The grounds staff has done a nice job keeping up with watering over the past couple of months so we're not going to give up yet! The top photo is a nice shot of some of our "resurrection lilies" (Lycoris squamigera) popping up already (about three weeks early). This perennial foliates in the spring and the foliage (looks like Narcissus) then dies back in mid-June. The flowers then pop up on these whitish, leafless stalks, hence the name. Directly above is the 'Chilly Chili' hot pepper (Capsicum annuum) which continues to get more showy as the summer continues. This one has very little for "heat" but lots for show! To the right is the 'David' garden phlox (Phlox paniculata) which is one of my favorite, mid-summer blooming perennials for a clear white contribution. The fragrance is nice too (particularly at dusk) but this variety is also quite mildew resistant as well. We have some large groupings of this perennial in the sunken garden at perfect peak bloom right now. Also in the sunken garden are four containers like the one seen to the left. The 'Diamond Head' elephant ear (Colocasia esculenta) has really filled out nicely with 'Orange King' coleus (Solenostemon scutellarioides) in the mid-level and some 'Illusion Garnet Lace' sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas) as the trailer. Note the absence of any flowers but plenty of foliage interest.

We had a nice assortment of talented volunteers today. Dave, Jim and Vern continued work on their shed project and continue to do a nice job. Most of the guys helped purge the yard (see below) of scraggly leftovers to start the morning. This included Ron W., Maury, Ron Y., Ron B., Bob C., Bill S. and Larry H. The guys later moved on to some different tasks like air edging, pruning and debris clean-up in various locations. Pat was in as a Grumpy today and continued re-staining the Horticulture Center. He later joined Ron B. for some air edging near the moss rose (Portulaca) collection. Gary was in for some label creation which he'll continue later this week. Bev came in for some much appreciated weeding in the sunken garden and Janice worked with three volunteers in the Ornamental Edible & Compact Vegetable Collection. They picked some major produce which they shared with other volunteers. We also saw Mary (Exec. Dir.), Leslie, Dr. Yahr, Rose and Urban. Dr. Gredler was in for some mowing and Bill O. was in to help water and tidy up here and there. Volunteers for our Home Garden Tour Committee meeting included Elaine, Janice, Cindi and Karen B. I'm sure I've missed some names too. To the right is the 'Tie Dye' Helen's flower or sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale) which is a great plant for later summer blooms. Below the picture of the fellas is the desk planter that the carpenters built for Victoria, one of our volunteers. Most of the grounds staff still had some tasks and responsibilities (watering) that carried over today on their "to do" maps from last week. Big John had noted a leaking water line yesterday so he and Larry dug and dug (and dug) to get it repaired. Larry ran irrigation all day although we couldn't use some of our watering sources until Larry was finished with the repairs. Larry also worked on more watering in various locations. Big John, after assisting Larry, spent the remainder of the day watering containers and watering in general. Marianne replanted some containers, watered, weeded, inventoried plants and put together another nice cutting display. Marv and Terry continued working on their shearing project from last week. The guys had recently sheared the boxwoods (Buxus 'Green Velvet') in the North point garden but were now touching up all the hedges that they sheared earlier in the formal gardens. They also did a nice job moving sprinklers around and helped with watering duties as time allowed. To the above right is the fruiting structure for the Italian arum (Arum italicum) which will be a solid orange red in a couple of weeks... To the left is the dark maroon bloom of the 'Cherry Brandy' gloriosa daisy (Rudbeckia hirta). This variety has various shades of the burgundy but I selected this as the darkest leaf and took the photo. I like this variety a lot and it is tough in our heat/sun. Don't count on it as a perennial as it rarely will come back and is better off replanted each year as an annual. When we had our big maroon/red theme years ago we had big drifts of 'Cherry Brandy' and it looked pretty neat. To the right are the ripening seed heads of one of our quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) selections. This is the variety 'Shelly 25 Black'. Quinoa is one of our eight grains that we're featuring in our Grains of the World collection this year. Quinoa possesses the best amino acid balance of any known grain. I'm not sure what that means but it sounds good. Below are some scenic shots that I took today. In order, we have the orange wall planting, Smelly Garden (Nancy Yahr Memorial Children's Garden) and the North point garden with the arbor floating in a sea of South American verbena (Verbena bonariensis).