Spring Is Looming

Above is one of our quote benches at the gardens. We actually have over 50 of these benches, each with an unique quote. I think we can all agree with this one. Normally spring on the calendar doesn't mean much in terms of weather although this week has been an exception with decent weather (more like April than March!). It was another nice day around here. I spent most of the day finishing orders and working on my presentation for March 28th here at the gardens. For this presentation, I will pick my "Top 10s" of various categories, particularly plants. This is so difficult! How do you narrow down so many plants to such small groupings?

Marv and Marianne came today. Marv continued sifting his compost pile while Marianne went out in the gardens and worked in the iris beds. She's tidying up signs and labels as well as accomplishing garden clean-up. Jim H. came to help with clean-up and Larry worked on equipment and got outside for awhile. Dr. Gredler has been aerating lawns already and continues to tidy up as needed. Our new Executive Director, Dave Jennings, started this week and will overlap Gary, our previous director, for a couple of weeks to "learn the ropes."

Some special events will be starting quite soon. Our bagged compost sale (see ot the left) will begin on April 4th. Over the years, we've sold close to 10,000 bags of this material as an organic soil amendment. This has been a great fundraiser for us and we'll also sell this material at our spring plant sale coming up in May (15,16,17). I had my green beer yesterday although it was tough to explain to my daughter (who dyed my beer) that more is not better with food coloring in particular. She also put food coloring in our Irish soda bread (see below). Interesting and unique look! (it was very green when we cut it open!).