Truly A Winter Wonderland

There was a light, damp snowfall most of yesterday that ended up including about 4" of fluff over some slush. The trees in the garden looked beautiful this morning. The conifer to the left is the Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii 'Carlson's Red Cone') that looked picturesque this morning with arching branches. The holiday lights show is up and we tested it on November 25th and had very few problems. The lights will be turned on as part of our "Taste of Chocolate" event on December 6th with the official public opening on December 13th. The challenge now is to keep the paths (extensive) clear of snow and ice while periodically testing the lights to make sure everything is going ok. Maury and Dick P. replaced some breakers today and we have some "fine tuning" to finish before this weekend.

The grounds staff, with the exception of Larry and Jerry, finished up last Wednesday. Special thanks to the continued efforts and quality work of Marv, Marianne, Terry and Janice. I'm sure we'll see them periodically thru the winter but not "officially" until April. We have an awesome team of both volunteers and paid staff but I can't say enough about the contributions and sacrifices of the small ground staff (a veritable "skeleton crew"). Little Jerry finishes up in two weeks. We stretch him out a bit to work on more pruning with Larry. The Grumpies worked on carpentry items for the most part today and Dick H. plowed out our parking lot (thank goodness).

When the stress of setting up the light show is done, I can then settle in and start going thru seed catalogs and begin to figure out our plans for next year. I'm often asked what I do in winter and aside from the lights show, I figure out what we're going to do next year, put together seed orders, facilitate our specialty growing operations with greenhouses and prepare for winter presentations. I usually have about 20 talks in February thru April and try to plan them well in advance so I don't have to put anything together last minute. These talks, frequently to audiences outside of the area, are also a great opportunity to encourage new visitors to come visit. Horticultural education is part of our mission and we're willing to go "on the road" to "spread the word". The shot below is a bit dark but note the colorful fruit display of the 'Winter King' hawthorn (Crataegus viridis 'Winter King').