Full Speed Ahead!

After a long weekend, today was a flurry of activity out in the garden with no shortage of duties such as weeding, watering, planting, removing bulb foliage and much more!  Neat shot above of the variegated Norway maple (Acer platanoides ‘Drummondii’).  Our grounds crew of Cindy, Nolan, Trevor, Janice, Big John and Bobby K. all had a busy day of activity on this beautiful, albeit windy, day.  Cindy worked on lots of watering, preparing containers for our summer plants and tidying.  Big John worked on watering, edging, planting and much more.  Trevor and Nolan took care of the push mowing with Trevor moving on to rototilling and Nolan doing some weedwhipping.  Janice did more planting in the Heirloom Garden, did the cutting display, watered and much more.  Bobby K. spent lots of time in the Giant Aquarium but also worked on water features and some other troubleshooting.  I continue to haul plants out for installation and am just barely staying ahead of our daily planting routine!  We had a nice turnout of volunteers today.

yellowhorn (Xanthoceras sorbifolium) – small woody tree

We had a great volunteer planting event this past Saturday with over 20 in attendance including kids and adults from the 4H Cloverbud group…we finished planting in two areas (photos above and below)

Leslie B. (above) leads a group out in the gardens today and was one of many excellent education volunteers helping with the Spring Plant Program which is always well received and today was no exception.  Kathy and Eva continued work on clearing weeds and bulb debris in the shade garden.  Ron R. planted elephant ears and was later joined by Steve and Barb who helped continue to plant in the same area.  Dr. Gredler and Rollie took care of the riding mowing and we also saw Maury (errands) and Vicki O. (preparing the North point for planting).  Jenny and Dave were in to tidy up their garden space: the Hosta Hollow.  Barb C. worked with Bobby K. in the Giant Aquarium and they are quite the team (see below).  Sixteen students from the TAGOS Academy came and helped plant along with two of their instructors.  Dick H. made some runs to the dump and we saw many others today.  Dylan and Flannery were in later in the evening for tidying in their garden space in the gazebo garden.

plum-scented iris (Iris graminea) – perennial

beautiful peonies (Paeonia) at peak (unknown varieties) – perennials

‘Carolina Moonlight’ false indigo (Baptisia hybrida) – perennial

‘Pink Lanterns’ columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) – perennial

‘Briant Rubidor’ weigela (Weigela florida) – woody shrub

Overdam’ variegated feather reed grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora) – perennial

 ‘Shaker’s Prayer’ Siberian iris (Iris siberica) – perennial

golden Alexander (Zizia aurea) – perennial

Steve (left) and Big John planting Abyssinian bananas (Ensete ventricosum ‘Maurelii’) today

students from the TAGOS Academy had another great day of planting and will return Thursday too!

‘E.A. Bowles’ variegated mockorange (Phildelphus coronarius) – woody shrub

Bobby K. and Barb C. have been the dynamic duo in the Giant Aquarium