Happy Earth Day!

Another nice sunny day albeit quite cool. Nice shot of hyacinths above. Tomorrow and Friday will be very warm and we're looking forward to that weather (followed by more April showers of course!). Happy Earth Day! Check out http://earthday.envirolink.org/history.html for information on how this day was started. We had preschoolers here today enjoying some programming developed by our Master Gardeners. Nice attendance and a well-received program. We hope to increase attendance in the future. Yesterday we received another shipment of plant plugs and Janice labeled and potted all of them. Our horticulture center is a maze of plants (see below) that gets moved outside for sunlight during the day but back inside at night to avoid the frost. We're not out of the woods yet in terms of frost!
Another very productive day with Marv and Terry installing some of our new garden signs and putting up the rest of our colorful obelisks. Bob helped dig holes for the signs and worked on digging out dead shrubs and mulching an area "in need." Kay was her normal "whirlwind" self and weeded a huge area of bedstraw, quackgrass and other nasties. She is worth her weight in gold around here as we love to tackle weeds early as it saves us time later in summer. Marianne was here this morning and catalogued our dead irises for replacement and arranged another nice cutting display for visitors to view what is blooming out in the gardens. Larry installed tree signs and bounced between a dozen small (but needed) projects. Dr. Gredler was here as was Maury and Vern. I spread crabgrass control fertilizer around the gardens and did get outside for a bit. We're getting prepared for a workday this Saturday and our big daylily division workday the following Saturday (May 2). Preparations for the spring plant sale have gone very well and we anticipate a huge success (and are praying for good weather). The peonies are really shooting up and I sure love the deep maroon, glossy growth as they stretch for light (see below).