Cooling Temperatures

I came in this morning to 41 degrees F and declared that it “wasn’t so bad” outside today.  The grounds staff corrected my assessment and mentioned the dropping temperatures expected throughout the day.  Along with a frigid breeze, it ended up being a bit chilly out there after the lunch hour.  Nice shot above featuring the orange fall color of three flower maple (Acer triflorum) with the intensifying red/maroon of our largest ‘Bloodgood’ Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) in the Japanese garden.

Our grounds staff of Cindy, Larry H., Larry O., Janice and I all kept busy with various tasks outside.  Cindy had some Holiday Light Show (HLS) duties as well as gardening tasks. The rest of us focused specifically on HLS set-up duties.  I would say we are 82.45% set up for the show but still need to test our power loads and run a couple of tests to see how she handles.  The cold didn’t keep our volunteers away today.  We had Kathy, Eva, Firefighter Cathy, Alan, Marv B., Vern, Steve, Jim, Dave, Bill O., Dr. Gredler, Dick P., Dick H. and some others.  Tasks included plenty of late season clean-up and gardening, bringing back containers and chairs for storage, carpentry, mowing and much more!

the recent hard frosts have leveled most plants in the garden like this hosta above…

fall color of ‘The Blues’ little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) – perennial

‘Princeton Gold’ Norway maple (Acer platanoides) – woody tree (most leaves are down now!)

‘Jaws’ stonecrop (Hylotelephium hybrida) – perennial

‘Gold Rush’ weigela (Weigela florida) – woody shrub

Korean feather reed grass (Calamagrostis brachytricha) – perennial

‘Copper Cascade’ foamy bells (xHeucherella) – perennial

Firefighter Cathy had no trouble wrestling these containers out for storage

fall color on ‘Yellow Lantern’ magnolia (Magnolia hybrida) – woody tree

fall color on Japanese larch (Larix kaempferi) – deciduous conifer

so many beautiful colors on the falling leaves…