For those that check on my blog regularly, I’m sorry I haven’t been more regular in recent months. This year, in particular, has been quite busy and while I still find time to take a couple photos each day (interesting shift to using primarily the camera on my phone!), I rarely have the time or energy to put together a blog. I do hope to gain more momentum with returning to this format and will post as often as my available time and energy allows! Sharing the daily escapades of our staff and volunteers along with lots of plants continues to be the goal of this blog which was started over 12 years ago!

This blog features a lot of recent color at the gardens. With heat finally settling in this month, plants are really taking off out in the gardens – including the weeds! At the time of typing this blog, we are about 93% done with installing our annuals which was an amazing record of seven solid weeks of hardcore planting with our excellent volunteers. A recent shift to some very necessary weed control efforts has slowed down planting a bit but we still have some “filler” annuals and quite a few perennials to install over the coming week or two. Our volunteers and excellent grounds staff continue to be paramount in the success of having the gardens look the best they have in 30 years. A big part of celebrating the 30th Anniversary is to proudly say we’ve created another masterpiece and peak summer color is still yet to come (2 weeks?). We’ve had many visitors recently and I’m excited that we have two bus loads of attendees to the Perennial Plant Association (PPA) Annual Conference (Chicago, IL) coming to the gardens in a couple weeks and we’re excited to share the garden with many first time visitors (and green industry VIPs!). More to follow. Get down to the gardens!

entrance garden annuals (above)
‘Becky’ Shasta daisy (Leucanthemum x superbum) – perennial (above)
fun ruler in the prairie for kids to see how tall plants get! (above)
bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora) – woody shrub (above) – thicketing!
Incrediball® smooth hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens ‘Abetwo’) – woody shrub (above)
‘Mighty Pip’ false spirea (Astilbe chinensis) – perennial (above)
queen-of-the-prairie (Filipendula rubra ‘Venusta’) – above
‘Visions’ false spirea (Astilbe chinensis) – perennial (above)
‘Rooguchi’ clematis (Clematis sp.) – semi-woody vine (above)
speckled elderberry (Sambucus nigra ‘Pulverulenta’) – woody shrub (above)
‘Little Rocket’ ligularia (Ligularia stenocephala) – perennial (above)
container plantings like the one above are filling in finally!
‘Young Lady’ European smokebush (Cotinus coggygria) – large woody shrub (above)
this colorful border in the sunken garden offers some “hot” colors! (above)
the Wellness Garden plantings are filling in nicely with the recent heat (above)