Garden Activities: October 21, 2025

Tuesday was an "unconventional” day. I had something come up and couldn’t make it so Nancy Taylor Walker was the designated lead for the day. In addition to Nancy, Bill Dobner, Dale Harshberger, Beverly Kemmerling, Katie Shank, Marna Wensil and Anna Wiktor-Becker volunteered.

Katie expressed a desire to learn more about the compost operation, so Bill provided a 30-minute ad-hoc training to the group. As Bill has been a frequent trainer on composting for the master gardener program, I will check with Jill Tyler (MG Program Manager) to see if this qualifies as CE.

Bill addressing the group.  Shown are Bill, Dale, Marna and Nancy.

The rest of the time was spent on a ramble through the garden doing some minor clipping and picking up along the way. This type of activity is important for gauging the health status of the collections and specifically of recently planted plants, for determining what needs to be addressed in subsequent weeks, and to enjoy the benefits of being in nature. The following images were taken along the route.

Dale and Anna standing to the left of a tree criss crossing another tree.  We’ll look at that next week to see if some pruning is advisable.

The group (Nancy, Marna, Katie, Dale and Anna) standing in front of a tree (Cassia leptophylla) a native of Brazil in the Trail of Trees. 

The acorn on the island oak (Quercus tomentella) is still protectively bagged.

The ramble ended in the new salvia garden. Many that were blooming two to three weeks ago have largely gone by but the grape-scented sage (Salvia mellisodora) still has some bloom. Beverly reported that the scent was that of concord grape jam!

Many thanks to Beverly, Nancy and Marna for their images!

Enjoy the garden….KMM