Polygonatum involucratum wild collected in Korea

I like Polygonatum and I've felt sorry for this one for several years. If you look at the collection notes, it says 35 cm tall. That's barely tall enough to peek over the top of a healthy mass of pachysandra. One of our colonies had, in fact, been eaten by pachysandra. It seemed healthy enough but the interesting arching form was lost, swallowed up actually. And the beautiful fruits were, for the most part invisible too.

Today was volunteer day and the weather wasn't so bad by absolute standards; the temperature reached 88F but the dewpoint was near 60 so the air was dry. Still, what might have been a pleasantly hot day in June has morphed into something no quite so pleasant. There is a cumulative effect to the heat of summer. For me at least. Betty, Julie, and Nancy gamely showed up and we did a variety of garden grooming tasks including removing the pachysandra that had swallowed this colony of polygonatum. I feel like we did a good thing.