A bit of a late post due to being busy with lots of other things but we had a fun trip to the annual Ball Customer Day held at The Gardens at Ball (West Chicago, IL).  Larry H., Alex, Shania, Ibhar and I enjoyed touring the display, taking tours and otherwise immersing ourselves in lots of color.  I took LOTS of photos and always use this trip as an opportunity to see new plants and touch base with folks I haven’t seen in a while.  We had a great experience and it was sunny and only 75 degrees F which made for a very pleasant day.  Enjoy just a small fraction of the color we experienced seen throughout this blog.

Ibhar above

Alex, Shania and Ibhar (from left to right) – our RBG Grounds rookies!

for years I had been driving by this big chair and “planted car” below at Shady Hill Gardens (Elburn, IL) and we stopped for some photos.  Above (left to right) are Larry H., Ibhar and myself.  Ibhar is below with this old Volkswagon!  Cool!

The photo directly above and the three below show the Nancy Yahr Memorial Children’s Garden plantings filling in very nicely!  The theme this year is an A-Z Pollinator Garden with plants represented by the entire alphabet.  Cindy has done a great job in this space over the years and placed all the plants for this exciting collection which looks better each day.  There is still more color to come and the pollinators, including lots of butterflies this year, are in abundance.  Our staff today of Alex, Shania, Ibhar, Terry, Janice, Larry H., Bobby K. and myself all had wide ranging duties including more watering.  The benefits from the soaking rain last weekend are starting to lessen so we’re augmenting our watering even on a cooler day like today (75 degrees F).  It was another busy day out in the gardens with plenty of visitors.  Our great volunteers, including Marleen goofing around in the top photo, included Kathy P., Eva, Winifred, Bonnie, Marilyn, Derrick, Alan, Bob K., Dave, Vern, Jim, Steve, Terri, Kay, Maury and many more.  Janice worked with the Chestnut House volunteers (Jordan, Donna and Victoria) with help from Dawn and Sue.  Another productive Thursday on the books!

white blazing star (Liatris spicata ‘Alba’) – perennial

‘Taos’ daylily (Hemerocallis) – perennial

‘Lilac Parachute’ daylily (Hemerocallis) – perennial

‘Cinnamon Sunrise’ daylily (Hemerocallis) – perennial

the Wellness Garden (above and two photos below) is still filling in nicely!

‘Empoli’ lily (Lilium hybrida) – perennial (yet to be planted!)

The front slope continues to look quite colorful!

Nice shot above of the entrance to the Parker Education Center.  Lots of folks are smitten with the wave of lavender color out there with South American verbena (Verbena bonariensis) covering a lot of real estate.  It was a very busy morning with two large tours coming through the garden along with many additional visitors.  It’s great to see folks enjoy the gardens at the start of peak summer color.  Our grounds staff of Shania, Alex, Ibhar, Larry H. and myself all had a wide range of duties including resuming watering in select areas as needed.  We continue to fine tune many area and our volunteers are instrumental on a daily basis in helping improve the gardens.  Our volunteers today included Kathy P., Eva, Greg P., Cheryl P., Kristin, Urban, Jenny E., Maury and many others.  It was another very productive day.  There is no shortage of color out in the gardens this time of year!  The next three weeks will feature peak summer color out in the gardens.

fruits of pagoda dogwood (Cornus alternifolia) – woody tree

golden hoptree (Ptelea trifoliata ‘Aurea’) – woody tree

‘Autumn Moon’ fullmoon maple (Acer shirasawanum) – woody tree

Ivory Halo® Tatarian dogwood (Cornus alba ‘Bailhalo’) – woody shrub

‘Hot Biscuits’ amaranth (Amaranthus cruentus) – annual

Wellness Garden plantings are filling in nicely (above)

‘Xanthos’ cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus) – annual

Sombrero^® Flamenco Orange hybrid coneflower (Echinacea hybrida ‘Balsomenco’) – perennial

neat three tiered planter at the Horticulture Center with (top to bottom) – ‘Wicked’ ornamental hot peppers (Capsicum annuum), ‘Tricolor’ sage (Salvia officinalis) and ‘Hot Pops Purple’ ornamental hot pepper (Capsicum annuum) – directly below too!

willow-leaf amsonia (Amsonia hubrichtii) transitioning to late summer golden foliage – perennial

EnduraScape™ Pink Bicolor verbena (Verbena peruviana ‘Balendpibi’) – annual

hazy morning shots of the pastel theme in the entrance garden (above and below)

sea lavender (Limonium sp.) – perennial

‘The Blues’ little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) – perennial grass

sunflower (Helianthus annuus) in the Plants of the World (POTW) collection

the prairie is looking nice and colorful this summer! (above)

Today we had a retirement party for Larry Olsen who worked at Rotary Botanical Gardens for over 20 years.  We had a great turnout of over 50 staff and volunteers (directly below).  Although retired as a staff member, Larry continues to be a volunteer but we thought it important to recognize all of achievements and the important role he has played at the gardens for so many years.  Not just an excellent gardener, Larry was handy with all sorts of repairs, improvements and always had a positive outlook on life.  It was great that most of his family attended this event and I was pleased to “roast” him nicely with a slide presentation showing him over the years doing many things at the gardens.  We certainly wish the best for Larry and his family and hope to continue to see him often.

Today was a gorgeous day and after the nice, soaking rains we had over the weekend, our summer color is really starting to peak nicely.  The photo above and the two directly below show our entrance garden with plenty of color.  Our pastel theme has worked pretty well although some of the pinks and salmons were brighter than I had planned and aren’t quite “pastels”.  We also had a heavily used pink zinnia turned out to be a mix of bright colors….we’ll just call those “accents” I suppose!  We had another water line burst yesterday which necessitated shutting down our water system for the day.  Thankfully everything is nicely moist after the weekend!  Nice to see so many visitors enjoying the gardens.

Our grounds staff of Cindy, Janice, Larry, Big John, Shania, Alex and Ibhar all had a wide range of tasks out in the gardens and with watering not necessary (or possible!), we are able to focus on more traditional gardening like weeding, planting, mowing, pruning, etc.  I placed plants for installation and continue to try to keep ahead of our events.  Our Fourth Annual Horticulture Therapy Symposium is coming up on August 8th.  Check out details on this neat event on our website.  Our volunteers included Kathy P., Eva, Kim, Steve E., Firefighter Cathy, Dr. Tom, Shirley H., Ron R., Lloyd, Dr. Gredler, Rollie, Maury, Kristin, Ron Y., Dave, Steve J., Vern, Gary, Marv, Dennis, Kay and many more.  It was another solid Monday at the gardens.

interesting leaf on a bloodleaf (Iresine hybrida) which shows both the variety ‘Blazin’ Rose’ and ‘Blazin’ Lime’!

‘Summer Beauty’ ornamental onion (Allium sp.) – perennial

‘Fireball’ French marigold (Tagetes patula) – annual

King Tut® papyrus (Cyperus papyrus) – annual

lemon bergamot (Monarda citriodora) – annual

‘The Rocket’ golden ray (Ligularia stenocephala) – perennial (above and below)

neat container above with ‘Black Coral’ elephant ears (Colocasia esculenta), trailing copperleaf (Alternanthera reinickii) and ‘Canary Wings’ begonia (Begonia hybrida)

 SunPatiens® Compact Tropical Rose impatiens (Impatiens hybrida ‘SAKIMP037’)

‘Lavender Mist’ meadow rue (Thalictrum rochebrunianum) – perennial (hard to photograph!)

Both Ruth Ann Potts (above) and Rollie McClellan (below) have been instrumental and vital at RBG for their many years of solid and continued volunteerism here at the gardens.  Both were past Board members and still help with myriad tasks and events at the gardens. They are sitting on two benches in the Wellness Garden, each of which was donated in their name last Wednesday as part of the dedication to a new garden space.  Ruth Ann was a major contributor to the new Wellness Garden and the other major donor, Mercyhealth, dedicated their involvement in the garden to Rollie for all of his years of service to the Mercy health system.  Great people sitting in a great garden.  Both photos are courtesy of Marsha Mood (go buy the RBG 2019 Calendar at our Cottage Garden Gallery which features Marsha’s photos!).