Another Warm One

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Today ended up being quite muggy and we hope we’ll have some rain soon!  Nice shot above of the west entrance in to the Japanese garden with an ‘Ivory Silk’ Japanese tree lilac (Syringa reticulata) in the background.  We continue to water and run irrigation as there is no such thing as a “sure thing” with these percentage chances of precipitation!  We took advantage of another nice, sunny day and the grounds staff and volunteers accomplished a lot of work out there!  We still have quite a few beds to plant but will continue to make progress daily although we also need to fit in weeding and watering.

Cindy did some watering and also put in quite a few more plants in the Hummingbird Haven theme in the Nancy Yahr Memorial Children’s Garden.  We’ve already seen some hummingbirds around so that garden should become a magnet quite soon!  Big John worked on tidying up, picking up sod, rototilling and myriad other projects (including container watering). Trevor and Nolan did their push mowing rounds, installed more sod and moved on to some watering duties on this hot day.  I was able to haul out more plants and design some containers for Cora to plant today.  It was another nice day although some nice, overnight, soaking rain would be welcome!

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‘Wild Russian’ delphinium (Delphinium x elatum) – perennial

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Crimean sage (Phlomis taurica) – perennial

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‘Jacques Cartier’ hybrid perpetual rose (Rosa) – woody shrub

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Kay (above) did a great job tidying along the Japanese garden edge and well in to the rose garden.  Our volunteers had a busy day out in the heat.  Kathy and Eva continued to weed one of our tropical berms and were later joined by Mary and Roy after they tidied up their section of the shade garden.  Both Bill O. and Dr. Gredler were in for mowing.  Barb C. spent some time installing new displays (of her creation) in the Giant Aquarium.  Jenny E. was in to tidy and plant in her assigned garden: the hosta hollow.  Cora was in this morning to plant containers in four areas.  Dick H. worked with Larry O. on continuing to dice up and haul off the green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) that was cut down yesterday (Emerald Ash Borer).  Larry also watered the entire yard.  Vern worked on some projects at the Horticulture Center and Maury ran many errands for us this morning.

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Kathy (above)

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Eva (above)

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Cora (above) planted over 20 containers this morning!

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Roy and Mary are way in the back wading through this sea of amaranth (Amaranthus sp.)

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‘Forever Pink’ phlox (Phlox hybrida) – perennial

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‘Pretty Belinda’ yarrow (Achillea millefolium) just starting to bloom – perennial

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the copper cheese vat planter has some nice silver and purple this year

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the ‘Fenway Gold’ Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata) is doing well!