Thursday, September 8, 2011

Plant Sale Is Ready To Roll

Aside from a few minor tweaks that we'll do tomorrow morning, the 13th Annual Fall Plant Sale is ready to go and we look forward to the RBG Members only presale tomorrow (9 am - 5 pm, 10% off). We had oodles of help today both at the sale and out in the gardens. It was a great team effort all around. The top photo is a close-up of an ivy geranium (Pelargonium peltatum) called 'Precision Red Ice' that is part of our Ball Seed display/trials. Directly above is Dr. Yahr, founder of the gardens, planting around the new lower pool of the Japanese garden waterfall/stream system. He and John did some significant planting in that garden today. Marianne had a good group of helpers for the plant sale with Magda (to the right), Shirley (to the left), Doris, Cathy, Nancy, Dennis, Cindy and Gary. The volunteers helped with pricing, arranging plants, watering and myriad other preparations. This was our morning shift although Cathy came back in the afternoon as well. Mary R., Suzy, Glenna and Karen did a nice job weeding throughout the Japanese garden and our afternoon "shift" of Myrt, Mary, Gena and Nancy did a nice job doing clean-up in the woodland walk garden. The morning Grumpies helped with various activities as well. Bob C. and Steve B. (new Grumpy today) worked on path clean-up while Ron B. helped in the plant sale. Ron W. and Maury ran out for more "loaner" wagons (see below) and Bob A. worked on the new Japanese garden fence replacement with Dick H. Dr. Gredler was here to work on his mowing rounds too. We also had a new "Grumpette" named Jenny start today and she worked with Janice all morning. Urban and Rose repainted one of our primary entry gates and Urban was back later to start preparing another gate for some touch-up work. We also saw Mary W., Mary D., Geesje, Kris, Kelli, Guy F., Bill, Little Jerry, Ed G., and so many others. It was "traffic central" over at the plant sale and we had to gently shoo out some premature shoppers that were scoping out the sale. To the right is the start of the sweet Autumn clematis (Clematis terniflora) blooms out near the pergola. In about three weeks, those vines will be at peak and will provide a wide radius of divine, sweet scent. Further below is a shot of the plant sale with our early morning helpers.While Marianne was immersed in the plant sale, the rest of the grounds staff had various duties out in the gardens. Larry continued running irrigation, did his push mowing rounds and helped with various plant sale preparations as well. Big John did lots of watering this morning, planted with Dr. Yahr, weeded and helped water in the plant sale. Janice was here to get our various volunteer crews going and helped with the initial orientation of our new volunteers today: Jenny and Steve. Her Thursday group of volunteers that will be starting again soon also came in for an orientation and tour. It was a good sized group of young volunteers and we look forward to their involvement here at the gardens. There should be plenty of action out in the gardens yet this fall. To the right is the foliage of the 'Golden Zebra' foamy bells (Heucherella) that we have both out in the gardens and in the plant sale. This shot was taken in the plant sale today. That foliage is dynamite and the lighter margins are actually a nice golden yellow in spring and later fade to this chartreuse in the summer heat. To the left is the variegated purple fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum 'Fireworks') that we used so much last year and haven't neglected to use it this year around the gardens. It has worked quite nicely as a container specimen as seen here in a formal garden urn. To the right are the spiky seed capsules of the castor bean (Ricinus communis). This is the variety called 'Carmencita Pink'. The variety 'Carmencita Red' has deep red capsules. Each one of these capsules contains three very poisonous seeds. However, the plant, despite it's bad rap by some, has many industrial uses and for us is a nice tropical that can reach heights of 12' regularly each summer. Directly below is a bloom from one of our Sunny Knockout roses (Rosa 'Radsunny') in the formal rose garden (note the artistic dew). This is a rose that just emerged as it is a deep yellow. Older rose blossoms of this variety age to a yellow-cream and the wide range of yellows on any given rose of this variety looks interesting because of the contrast. The bottom picture is from across the observation pier to the distant arched bridge..

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