No Frost – Yet

The photo above and below are not at Rotary Botanical Gardens but were taking yesterday in the Healing Garden at SSM St Mary’s Hospital here in Janesville.  These are seven-son flowers (Heptacodium miconioides) which are a neat woody plant (small tree) that already bloomed white (and fragrant!) in September and the pink you see are calyces showing color after the flower petals drop.  They have thirteen beautiful, “textbook” specimens in this garden and I enjoy visiting this garden to see these and other neat plants and features.  It is a very nicely designed garden.

No frost last night but I think temperatures did get below 40 degrees F.  It looks like we’ll get our first frost tonight but the cool start to the day didn’t slow down our grounds staff or all the hard working volunteers that showed up to help out.  The Wellness Garden was being used for the filming of a commercial today which was nice to see.  There were lots of folks coming and going for this project.  Our grounds staff of Alex, Ibhar, Big John, Larry H. and I all had various duties.  John, Larry and I continued progress on the Holiday Light Show (HLS) while Alex and Ibhar did a wide range of gardening as we tidy up the gardens for the last outdoor wedding of the season in the sunken garden tomorrow.  Our volunteer crew consisted of Kathy P., Eva, Kay, Tani, Dennis, Urban, Steve, Vern, Dr. Gredler, Bill O. and some others.  We had a great day out in the gardens.

superior fall color above of Firespire™ American hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana ‘J.N. Upright’)

‘Duchess of Edinburgh’ perennial mum (Chrysanthemum x rubellum) – perennial

the terrace garden (above) looked colorful this morning

500 half gallon milk jugs = new luminaries for the HLS!

‘Ozawa’ ornamental onion (Allium thunbergii) – perennial

‘Irish Poet’ tassel flower (Emilia javanica) – annual

‘Primrose Lady’ African marigold (Tagetes erecta) – annual

Spanish flag (Mina lobata) – annual vine

cute shot yesterday of Dick and Marilyn snuggling up

‘Black Pearl’ ornamental hot pepper (Capsicum annuum) – annual

bronze fennel (Foeniculum vulgare ‘Smokey’) – perennial

‘October Skies’ aromatic aster (Aster oblongifolius) – perennial

October is a time for bulbs (for planting) and bulbs (for decorating!)