Perfect Weather!

Today was simply beautiful with a cooler start to a sunny day with a high temperature around 80 degrees F. It was excellent working weather and while the gardens were still damp from our recent rains, we did some select watering and fertilizing here and there. The gardens were beautiful today as evidenced by the photo above with this planting berm (maintained by Hal and Doris) also featuring the Biota sculpture by O.V. Shaffer. We saw lots of visitors today! Our grounds staff had a busy day but accomplished a lot of diverse tasks over the course of this beautiful day. We've had late July temperatures in the upper 90 degrees F so we can't complain too much. We also had an excellent turnout of volunteers. Below are some additional photos from today.

'Sylphid' plume celosia (Celosia plumosa) - annual

'Greywoods Tallyho' daylily (Hemerocallis) - perennial

'Prairie Moon' rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium) - perennial

'Mandarin Orange' creeping zinnia (Sanvitalia procumbens) - annual

'Solar Flare' coneflower (Echinacea hybrida) - Big Sky Series - perennial

Our talented crew of volunteers continues to come in daily and two of our most frequent volunteers jumped back in to some serious weeding in the entrance garden. Above is Eva with her red jacket complimenting the theme and below is Kathy (who didn't match at all...). The ladies are my mobile weeding force and bounce around the gardens daily! The second photo down shows Barb S. in the formal gardens where she helped Cheryl weed those eight sections that are defined by boxwoods (Buxus). The ladies did a great job of course! The third and fourth photos down show Resa and Cookie respectively as they tidied up the North point garden (their assigned garden) which is looking excellent! Bill O. came in for his mowing and Pat M. did a great job repairing a damaged terrace umbrella from the weekend storms. Kay (fifth photo down) did her weeding kung fu in a "bed in need" and transitioned to her area as well for clean-up. Jenny was in to keep the Hosta Hollow looking awesome. Don and Pearl (sixth photo down) continue to maintain their excellent garden space while Kylie and Forrest (seventh photo down) processed plants in the holding yard. We also saw many others today as well.

Almost the entire grounds staff (sans Terry) was here today. Big John worked on pruning, fertilizing and other projects. Larry continued work on water features and other duties including watering. Nolan was in for mowing and Trevor worked on mowing, sweeping and lots of fertilizing. Cindy worked her magic in the Smelly Garden which looks (and smells) excellent. Cheryl tidied in the formal gardens and Japanese garden and took care of yard watering. Janice spent time in the Thomas Jefferson Collection, did the cutting display and had a wide range of other tasks as well. I was able to spray some herbicide, had meetings and am getting ready for our Gardening as Therapy symposium on August 11th! Check out our website for more information.