Coolness Continues

Today was another cool one at around 72 degrees F.  The sunshine was welcome and it looks like we’ll head in to some hotter weather later in the week.  We hope to have great weather for the Home Garden Tour this Saturday, July 11th.  See our website at rotarygardens.wpengine.com for more information on this event.  It was a great day to visit the gardens and we saw MANY folks strolling through including some tours and groups of children.  While the cooler summer has had ample rainfall, we still are waiting for the heat to help push along our tropicals.  However, there was no shortage of beautiful things to see at the gardens today like the ‘Mystic Enchantment’ dark-leaved dahlia (Dahlia sp.) seen directly above.  Our grounds staff kept busy today and we had a superb group of volunteers help out in the gardens.  All the photos in this blog were taken today.

 dill (Anethum graveolens ‘Fernleaf’) – annual
 ‘Perfume Lime’ flowering tobacco (Nicotiana x sanderae) – annual
 ‘Chili Pepper’ (FlameThrower Series) coleus (Solenostemon scutellarioides) – annual
 Victoria’s desk planter above is looking good
800 caladiums ready to go and ultimately planted by the Chestnut House volunteers and Myrt, Nancy and Patty seen directly below….
Our volunteers had a great day out in the gardens and what perfect weather to be outside!  Directly below is Betty working in her berm with a strong focus on dealing with the “carpet weeds” in the gaps between the plants.  Right now is the window to address these issues before the plants fill in and the weeds are near impossible to address.  Nearby was Shirley C. (second photo down) doing the same weeding in her garden space.  Vern (third photo down) was in to work on re-lettering this bench before setting it back out in the gardens.  Kay came in for some weeding and did a great job in a large bed filled with annuals (and plenty of small weeds!).  Don and Pearl (fourth photo down) tidied up their area and Stan, Karen and Cheryl P. all worked in the Japanese garden with pruning, shearing and tidying duties.  The fifth photo down shows Maury (left) and Dick P. pouring concrete to mount a new plaque.  Eva and Kathy continued their weeding project along the front slope area which is certainly one of our priorities!  Janice came in and worked with the Chestnut House volunteers who did a great job planting . We also saw Bev F., Mark S., Gary, Ed, Dick H. and many others today.

 

 

 

 

The grounds staff kept busy today.  Cheryl (half day) continued on her weeding projects while Cindy (half day) composted lots of plants and moved on to tidy work in the Nancy Yahr Memorial Children’s Garden (Scented Garden).  Nolan worked on skimming and replacing path gravel, mulching, removing plants and some other tasks.  Big John made a plant run, butchered a willow (it needed it!), watered the yard and had some other duties.  Terry sheared, watered, mulched and had some other duties as well.  I was able to place plants and help organize the volunteers today.  It was a very productive day!

 our Abyssian bananas (Ensete ventricosum ‘Maurelii’) are gaining some size in the Alphabet Jungle Garden (both above and below…)
 it will fun to see the growth of these tropicals against our three giant, 10′ tall rulers
 Our Alphabet Jungle Garden theme interprets the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom story by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault.  Visitors can enjoy the storyline which includes reference to coconut trees (which we have!…second photo down)
 coconut palm (Cocos nucifera)
the kids enjoyed going through the doors in to the Alphabet Jungle Garden