Good Morning!

I haven't forgotten about you all. I've just been out of the office. No. Not on vacation. I don't think any gardener in her right mind would plan a vacation during Spring/Summer. I was at the Denver Botanic Garden. Yeah. I have a rough job. I had to spend all day with plant people hearing about plants, talking about plants, looking at plants and getting plants. It was the annual meeting for Plant Select. I'm pretty sure I've talked about Plant Select before and I encourage you to visit their website. I love their plants. Their plants make me look soooooo gooood. They do a lot of research and testing to find plants that work well in our challenging Colorado soils. Their plants are pretty fool-proof. They make the blackest thumb turn to a darker shade of green.

Anyway, I came back with a truckload of plants. Yes. An entire truckload. I just love those Plant Select people. I give them my list of what I want and then they give me bonus plants. Yay! I love bonus plants. We are once again a test garden for plants that are not yet available for sale. Isn't that cool? I hope I don't kill them all this time. Just kidding! I only killed a few of them last time around. Most of them survived. And I didn't kill any of the tried and true plants. Ok. Maybe a couple of the delosperma bit the dust. But they were just little tykes and I probably shouldn't have put them in the ground so soon. But everyone else is looking good.

More exciting news is that we have plant labels! Plant Select gave us labels this year in addition to plants. So now when you visit the Gardens you can see which plants are Plant Select. Then you can march down to your favorite local nursery and get them for your very own garden. How great is that? Very.

Where's the Camera?

I've gotten out of the habit of pulling my camera out at a moment's notice. It isn't that there haven't been beautiful things to take pictures of. The Plant Select plants are doing well for the most part. The International Garden looks great. So does the Herb Garden. As does the Sensory Garden. We'll be getting some koi to put out in the Japanese pond and Monte and Zack from Marine Tech came out and changed out the filters in the ponds in the greenhouse so they will be clean and clear. There is a new koi and a new goldfish in the pond in the butterfly house. Tom came by with a load of mulch. The fun never ends! ;)

Pictures from Friday

Richard, Tyler and Lloyd (welcome back) planted the creeper garden today. Creeper because it has officially snuck to the other side of the fence. It has butterfly bushes, chocolate flower, the last of the gazanias and the korean feather grass. It feels good to have some plants in that barren area.

Elsie and Anna finished the weeding in the amphitheater and it is looking really good. Now if I could just get the heads fixed on the irrigation we'd be in business. Elsie finished did some deadheading and watering which was much needed and appreciated.

The solitary bees are out in force leaving their mark on the honeysuckle Richard planted last week, lonicera, Kintzley's Ghost.

The purple leaved mimosa, albizia julibrissin, Summer Chocolate, is budding and soon will have those crazy, wispy flowers. It is even starting to provide a tiny bit of shade. In a couple of years it will very nicely shade a section of the sidewalk. I'm thrilled it made it through the cold winter we had this year. It isn't supposed to, it is only supposed to grow in zone 6. I won't tell it if you won't.

Blooming Magnolia

Anna did a great job of finishing up the gazanias. And out of the blue a volunteer called to say she was available for this afternoon only for a few hours. Perfect! She got the watering done and I got my paperwork done. Monte was a huge help today too. He got the fountains going in the Japanese pond. Plus he showed me the pump for the little pond in the Children's Secret Garden. There is going to be a little change to that fountain but I'm not going to tell you 'til it is done. It is a secret. ;) Plus one irrigation pain in the neck may not be as bad as I think. Yay! I'm excited to be extending an existing garden so that it will be on both sides of the fence. Yes. I'll be using the Plant Select plants. Speaking of I have to get pictures of them. The scutellaria suffrutescens, aka cherry skullcap, is already blooming cute little red blooms. And the rudebekia, aka Denver Daisy, not only is blooming but bounced right back after it got accidentally stepped on. Yes, we are the perfect test site. Not only do we have tough growing conditions, being a public space we face those challenges as well. Yeah, the delosperma, aka ice plant, got trampled by a kid today too. Grrrr.

Apparently, I have been really busy and really focused the last couple of days because I didn't even notice the magnolia blooming until today. I checked that bud every day for the last month and yesterday it decided to bloom. At least I got a photo of it today.

Beautiful, huh?