Cool And Sunny. Perfect.

Awesome weather today with blue skies and highs in the low 60s. I appreciate an April with that type of weather and the recent rains have really moved things along (including weeds). Nice shot of our tulips out front of the building today. We plant 2,000 new tulips each fall in front of the building for a splash of color prior to Mother's Day. It wasn't hard to take many good pictures today and we had a great volunteer turnout despite this being typically a "light day".

Larry's been working on equipment and picked up some new tables and chairs for use over at the visitor's center. He'll be weed-whipping this afternoon as our turf has grown considerably over the past week and we'll push mow for the first time at the end of the week. Janice was working on plant sale beans and now is outside targeting garlic mustard and other nasty weeds in the Scottish garden and woodland walk. Jenny worked on making new rose labels and is also doing some significant weeding in our "hot spots". Kay, Heidi and Barb all came in today and did a great job weeding the parking lot islands, around the horticulture center and beyond. It's nice to have this team back together for some serious spring work! Rollie is here putting in new memorial bricks and Bob is working with Jim W. to fill in tree sign holes and dig up more deadnettle (Lamium sp.) that has spread. Nice shot (to the right) of 'Powderpuff' magnolia (Magnolia x loebneri) in front of our visitors' center. Very showy although I'm a huge fan of the saucer magnolia (Magnolia x soulangiana) and the nice range of pastel pinks on huge blooms. See below for a shot of our saucer magnolia in bloom down near the arched bridge in the Japanese garden.


See the bottom photo of Marianne with her cutting display. Janice also helps with this display. Many botanic gardens have set-ups like this that include samples of plants in bloom or of interest. Marianne does a nice job of representing various plants from around the gardens and keeps a nice fresh and artistic grouping of pretty cool stuff for visitors to enjoy and get a "taste" of what's going on outside!