Accidents Happen (Unfortunately)

Note the beautiful blue garden phlox above (Phlox paniculata 'Blue Paradise'). This perennial (from Song Sparrow) is mildew resistant and these wonderful blue flower clusters extend thru summer on top of 40" stems.

Today was again very productive despite light showers in the morning. We're winding down with planting and are consolidating all our remaining plants in the yard. The Grumpies were productive as normal and the grounds staff kept busy with myriad tasks. We'll have to seriously shift to weeding in the coming weeks as our regular precipitation has encourage the weeds as well as our plantings. Unfortunately, one of our volunteers slipped while stepping out of one of our beds that she was weeding and cut above her eye and scraped up her shoulder. She is a tough cookie and despite the blood, turned out to be ok. Accidents do happen but hopefully not very often. Marilyn will be back soon and we wish her the best. We'll leave her weeds there for her return as there is not shortage....
Another nice coneflower is pictured to the left. This is Echinacea 'Pixie Meadowbrite' that is the offspring of three parents. At 18" tall or so, this dwarf coneflower has lots of summer "flower power". This is another nice introduction from Dr. Jim Ault of the Chicago Botanic Garden.

To the right is the 'Ghost' fern which is an awesome cross between the lady fern (Athyrium filix-femina) and the Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum var. pictum). It has the wonderful silvering of the painted fern and the stature of the lady fern at 24" in height.

Poised And Ready...

The variegated golden Alexander (Lysimachia punctata 'Alexander') is seen above in one of our volunteer's garden. The green leaved version is quite aggressive and this variety is not quite as vigorous. However, in time, you'll see some green reversions that should be removed immediately. This perennial has a long blooming period and helps illuminate a partly shaded location (with adequate moisture mind you). Lots coming up this week including the last of our seasonal plantings....! See below for a neat, dwarf goatsbeard (Aruncus aethusifolius) that blooms under 15".

Has The Cacophony Ended!?

It's not that I don't like fireworks. We went to the Janesville show last night and blew up some small stuff out in the yard. The cacophony is between 11 pm and 2 am when others in the neighborhood continue the celebration of pyromania (mainly males). Regardless, we have a nice day today and I popped by the gardens to find Larry and Janice with eight or so volunteers. We're keeping up with watering at this point and could use some hot days to get our annuals moving along. The image above is of the first double white coneflower (Echinacea purpurea 'Coconut Lime') that only gets 20" or so in height but has oodles of blooms. We're establishing a collection of over 100 varieties of coneflower (Echinacea) and are interested to see some of the new varieties and their potential (or lack thereof) in the landscape.

To the left is a good shot of one of the variegated feather reed grasses (Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Avalanche') that I've noticed tops out below 48" tall, making it a good foot shorter than 'Karl Foerster' (seen in a recent blog entry). What a nice, light, upright look. The flower heads age to amber but the rigidness of this grass will extend all the way thru winter. Calamagrostis' are one of the easiest grasses to divide as well.

Note the interesting foliage of this Rodger's flower (Rodgersia pinnata 'Chocolate Wings') on the right. In spring, the foliage emerges chocolate/maroon and ages to a green. They prefer adequate moisture and send up huge creamy flower plumes that later age to burgundy. We have many different Rodgersias at Rotary Gardens and love every one. For a tropical look in part shade, give them a whirl. This variety would combine well with golden foliaged plants, perhaps the golden sedge (Carex elata 'Bowles Golden').

Happy Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July. We have volunteers at the garden this morning taking care of watering. I believe there is a wedding at the gardens today as well. What an easy date for the groom to remember his anniversary. As soon as the firework tents go up in late June, he'll be reminded of his anniversary (and if he still forgets.....). Temperatures are pleasant today and it should be a clear night for fireworks. Notice the nice begonia hanging basket above. Our hanging baskets are designed by us but are started by a local nursery in April. The potting soil in these 16" fiber baskets has a slow-release fertilizer as well as water retention crystals. We additionally fertilize these once every three weeks. Our 24 large baskets are transitioned out in September and replaced with mum hanging baskets to extend the color. Watering is obviously vital for these baskets but always check them before they're drenched. Overwatering can be a concern.

We can all appreciate the beauty and architecture of flowers and plants. I'm always amazed by the innate talents of native wildlife. See the nest below that was constructed behind one of our clematis trellises by a determined mama bird. Rotary Gardens (and our home gardens for that matter) are homes to resident wildlife. Landscaping for wildlife should also include provisions for shelter and raising young. The bottom picture shows one of our containers that was accidentally hit by the contractors that were resurfacing our parking lot. Now we have to deal with repairing and ultimately replacing this expensive container. Oh well, those things happen.

What Day Is It Anyway?

With the 4th of July tomorrow, the Friday grounds staff (Marv, Marianne and Terry) shifted to help prepare the gardens for the weekend. Normally this is done on Friday but we did our Friday routine (mowing, wedding site prep, planting, watering, etc.) today. Marv and I went over to Song Sparrow Nursery (Avalon, WI) to pick up some plants and were treated to an impromptu tour by Renee, the nursery manager. She has a true passion for plants and runs a tight ship. I HIGHLY encourage everyone to get copies of the Song Sparrow catalog (mail order) which is one of the nicest catalogs around (layout, pictures, plant descriptions and of course, offerings...). The Grumpies were active with various projects and we were able to do quite a bit of planting. I went around with RoundUp and hit some of our worst areas for weeds. The bummer today was noticing that someone has moved a bunch of labels around one of our gardens (intentionally), thereby screwing up our interpretation and creating more work for us. In addition, I found a clump of annuals that had been pulled out of the ground and tossed behind some shrubs. It's not worth trying to figure out the motivations of those that abuse the gardens. I just hope they've graduated on to mailbox baseball, ding door ditch and burning bags of dog poop as they all fall in line with such juvenille activities (not necessarily done by teenagers though...).

The shrub at the top is the native, American elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) that you may notice blooming along roadsides, waterways and other locations that tend to be on the damp side. This shrub can't be missed as it has huge, white flower "domes" that later turn to dark maroon berries. The leaves, stems, roots and unripe fruits are mildly poisonous. Cooked berries are used in juices, wines and other recipes. The picture above was taken along the Milton, WI section of the Ice Age trail. However, we have six or so nice specimens along our pond. This shrub does sucker and spread. Many of the European species have neat cultivars with colorful leaves. Elderberries do prefer adequate moisture.

'Karl Foerster' feather reed grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster') is in "bloom" below. The inflourescences have a pinkish tinge initially, then turn amber color. This cool season grass achieves full height by early July and this grass is one of my favorites for mass planting and its narrow, upright form. Look for 'Avalanche', 'Overdam' and 'El Dorado' if you like a little variegation with your feather reed grass.

The "Joys" of Purslane

The carpet of green above is purslane (Portulaca oleracea) which is truly an example of a plant that can be equally considered good and bad (depending on your point of view). This is a prolific, spreading plant that has fleshy, stalkless, paddle-shaped leaves and reddish stems. Rotary Gardens has been infiltrated and almost overcome with this weed which germinates late in spring but can reseed very quickly, as the blooms are hard to notice and low to the ground. Our soil has years worth of seeds that continue to form these carpets of doom. When the plant is bigger and more established, it is easier to track down to a growing center point that can be pulled easily out of wet soil. However, in many cases, there are thousands of little seedlings that need to be totally removed or sprayed with herbicide as any little piece left in the soil can continue to grow. In fact, portions uprooted and left on the soil may use the abundance of water in their stems and crank out a dying gift of seeds and another weeding nightmare. We do use RoundUp to control this weed in the cracks between our bricks and patios. However, we are currently "in the trenches" trying to manually remove purslane from planted areas. The frustration is knowing that manual removal is just a temporary respite as it's near impossible to eradicate this darn weed permanently without a concerted effort to deal with the aggressive recurrence of this plant.

Now the good. Purslane is edible and good for you. This native of India and parts of the Middle East was supposedly Gandhi's favorite food and has been used as a salad herb for thousands of years by many cultures. Purslane contains Omega-3 fatty acids (good), vitamins B & C, carotenoids, magnesium, calcium, potassium, etc. This succulent herb is heavily promoted in the "edible landscaping" movement and can be eaten fresh, cooked, stewed, etc. There are numerous herbal uses of this plant as well. It is very easy to grow but again, the issue isn't the culinary or health value of the plant but it's vigorous, reseeding and spreading nature. Simply a plant out of place, you decide...

We started hauling in some freebie annuals today which have traditionally (and thankfully) been vital in finishing our planting. We'll continue to plant seasonals thru next week and always keep "backups" just in case. Marv, Marianne, Terry, Jerry and Larry were kept hopping today with watering, weeding, planting, etc. We finally did get some rain but I'm glad we ran irrigation and sprinklers regardless. We just need some serious 85 degree days to get things moving along and start drying up some of our flooding issues.

Another cool clematis to the left is called 'Madame Julia Correvon' which just draws the eye. We have to do some minor tying up and securing of our clematis' as they're on 5' tall posts and most would go considerably higher. They can tend to get floppy but the flower power is undeniable. To the right is the purple-leaved dahlia 'Mystic Illusion'. I can't believe the wonderful contrast between such dark foliage and the bright, clear yellow blooms. We've grown this before (this shot taken in our sunken garden) and are impressed with it's medium height (less than 36") and it's strong blooming all the way until frost. There are actually three other varieties in the Mystic Series with the same foliage but blooms of pink, deep orange and light orange. Look for them. See some of my 'Seriously Scarlet' breadseed poppies (Papaver somniferum) in bloom in my backyard. My youngest daughter has spread thousands of seeds around the yard and we never tire of seeing this annual that will continue to be part of our garden after we're all "six feet under"...

Thin But Productive Today

I took a little time today to take some pictures of our small clematis collection (85). This Clematis x durandii really stood out as a strong bloomer. Clematis' are actually very durable vines in our landscapes. They benefit from adequate support, rich soil and occasional fertilizer. There are some differences on when to cut them back as it relates to their flowering. We cut most of ours back in early winter down to 12" or so. They've become a nice addition to our perimeter fence. Remember to garden in three dimensions (think vertically), not just two!

Tuesdays are a bit thin for grounds staff which makes it a challenge to take care of mowing and watering. We were fortunate to have Kay, Ron, Bev, Mary, Roy and Heidi come in to help plant. With our parking lot being resurfaced, traffic (vehicular and human) has been rerouted through our east gate which became very congested today when a tour bus pulled in to unload there as well! We all made it thru the day and will have the lot back at the end of the week. It's an amazing process to watch although the contractors accidentally broke one of our larger planters out front. Below is another clematis called 'Multi-Blue'. The metallic violet, pink and blue overtones are mesmerizing. I have this one at home and like it a lot. 'Rooguchi' at the bottom is one of the hottest clematis' on the market. Originally bred in Japan for use in tea ceremonies, 'Rooguchi' is definitely beautiful. Where are your vertical opportunities for vines?