Another Great Visitation Day

There sure seemed to be lots of visitors out in the gardens today. I like to think that the "word is out" that we're at peak summer color as seen above with this small portion of the red-themed wall planting. While we still haven't had some of the summer heat we've come to expect, it hasn't been a bad year in general for the gardens. Some more rain would be nice but we're keeping the gardens damp with irrigation and sprinklers as needed. We had a bumper crop of volunteers today and I was pleased with all the work that was accomplished by both volunteers and staff. While we start focusing on looming events like the Fall Plant Sale, we can't neglect our day to day tasks and hope to see this trend of solid, daily visitation continue! Below are some additional images from today.

the Jungle Garden is looking sharp

'Puckered Up' elephant ear (Colocasia esculenta) - tropical

pods of the purple hyacinth bean (Dolichos lablab) - annual

'Purple Flash' ornamental pepper (Capsicum annuum) - annual

I was amazed at the number of volunteers we had today. It was a nice turnout of Grumpies, Grumpettes and other volunteers as well. Above are Ron Y. (left) and Vern working on some new chairs in the carpentry shop. Other Grumpies included Ron P. and Gary B. who worked on cleaning up a huge brush pile that Urban had recently generated. Bob C. did a nice job watering some new trees and Pat M. worked on setting up a spray booth for some of our winter painting needs. Below is Vicki who worked with six other ladies in the entrance garden pink theme. We continue to weed, trim and are even starting to remove some failing plants from this display. The cold evenings have contributed to some fungal problems that are starting to become evident here and there. The second photo down shows Sue (left) and Mary R. weeding that same area. The third photo shows Shirley who was also working with Kathy and Eva in this huge area. The ladies actually shifted to another area after finishing this space and Winifred and Marianne both worked in the Thomas Jefferson Collection which still looks great! The fourth and fifth photos down show Resa and Cookie respectively as they continue to do a top notch job keeping the North point garden looking great. Linda S. came in to work across the way from the ladies for weeding needs in our newest perennial border. Mary W. helped in the Jungle Garden and herb garden and Hal and Doris (sixth photo down) tidied their area and moved in to some other spaces too! Dr. Gredler did some mowing here and there. Betty tended her area and Lisa I. came in later with Mary to work with Big John in the daylily (Hemerocallis) collection. It was a crazy morning and apologies to any that I missed. Lots of "coming and going" today!

The grounds staff (Larry, Janice, Big John and me) all had watering duties. Larry ran irrigation, push mowed, watered containers and did some major weed whipping prior to this busy weekend with four outdoor weddings. Big John set up multiple sprinklers, watered containers with Larry, edged, helped with the daylily (Hemerocallis) job, etc. Janice (birthday girl!) helped coordinate the multitude of morning volunteers, worked in the Thomas Jefferson Collection and did some major watering and fertilization later. I had a day full of meetings and deskwork but was able to explore the gardens to identify our target areas for weeding and watering! Below are more photos from this morning.