East Terrace in the morning

I went out on the East Terrace of the Administration Building today to look at the seasonal plantings that went in Monday. They're, as usual, spectacular. Since I'll have to do weekend watering twice this summer, I was glad to see the preponderance of xerophytes.

This Crinum is pretty special.

I walked over to the east edge and looked into the Cryptomeria Walk. The early sun is my favorite light.

The Koi seem to have survived our "roundup" and are as greedy as ever.

Growing in the sw corner of the ramp and the terrace is a colony of Hedychium coronarium, Butterfly Ginger. It'll have large white wonderfully fragrant flowers later in the summer. This is one of those plants that we used to assume wasn't hardy in Zone 7, but seems to come through most winters. It doesn't like to be dry, growing best in moist locations.

Pinckneya pubens, Fever Tree is flowering in Fern Valley in the Coastal Plain section

The petaloid sepals will color up more but since I miss it every year I thought I'd go ahead and take this picture today. Native in moist areas of the SE Coastal Plain, and related to the Quinine Tree, Pinckneya was used by Native Americans to reduce fever. Medium to large? trees are spectacular covered with flowers. I've seen them in the Okefenokee Swamp. These plants Joan has have always struggled; I'm not sure they're true Zone 7 plants, but as the world gets warmer and these plants get more firmly established, they seem to be settling in for the long haul. Someday maybe we'll see 100 blooms on this plant!

 This picture is from Monday June 7. There seems to be a bit more color. Maybe more obvious to my eye than in the photo! Oh well. I'll continue monitoring it.