Today was unusual for a few of reasons: 1) we met at 9am which with the daylight savings time change meant we started when we usually are getting ready to wrap up, and 2) we were somewhat distracted with it being voting day, and 3) we finished the morning with a meditation. Nevertheless, we (Dale Harshberger, Irene Rowland, Daryl Stutley, Nancy Taylor Walker, Janet Wall, and yours truly) took a tour through the garden stopping to do various cleanup activities on the way to the top of the hill.
First stop was at the S. African section where we removed the dead stalks of native milkweed. Below shows Dale and I at the task:
Janet with a sprig of milkweed in her hand (there really wasn’t all that much left to cut!):
Irene also found a couple of sprigs to remove:
At the top of the hill we stopped to sample the fruit of the strawberry tree (Arbutus unendo) which is delightful. We then removed some Hesperoyucca whipplei (our Lord’s candle) dead tops which Jim Cyr and I deposited in the regular trash.
Daryl supervising as I removed some remaining dead leaves:
Finally we cleared a couple of branches of the pepper tree overhanging the Fred and Pat Carlson bench facing NW at the top of the hill. Below, Daryl and I at the task:
We finished the day with a soothing meditation led by Irene under the shade of the grape arbor below the waterfall.
On our journey we came upon a couple of plants to highlight this week. One was the Diospyros kaki or Oriental persimmon fruit tree in the Rare Fruit Orchard. What a wonderful show of fall leaf colors!
And in the S. African section is a S. African geranium (Pelargonium sidoides) which is covered by small but beautiful purple-magenta flowers:
Many thanks to Nancy and Janet for their images.
Enjoy the garden! KMM
Comments