Progress Before The Looming Showers

Above is a plant that we're not real excited about seeing although there is merit to seeing it's early active growth. This is garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) that has run so rampant throughout woodlands in the Midwest and well beyond. The plants green up very early and are easy to identify and locate as plants will also stay green under a nice blanket of snow. Garlic mustard is a rapidly growing hardy biennial (two years from seed to flower) that will quickly reseed, colonize and become a dense groundcover, thereby shading out our native wildflowers and other possible desirable plants. See image to the right of these weeds in bloom. Garlic mustard will drop lots of seeds and these seeds not only will be "carried" by wildlife but will remain viable for many years, necessitating a multi-year approach for removal. This time of year, on a warm day (60 degrees F at least) I'll "target herbicide" as many as I can find so they will die before they flower. If you are hand pulling garlic mustard (get the root), be sure to bag them up and dispose of them. They should never be put in a compost pile as few compost piles generate enough heat to destroy all garlic mustard seeds. Regardless, do a little more research on this "thug" and considering doing your part (soon) to help fight this menace. Check out the root on this thing to the left!!!

Great day out in the gardens as the promise of rain hasn't materialized yet and the Grumpies accomplished a lot of work. The carpenters worked over at the other building while Marv worked with Urban, Del, Richard H. and Dick W. putting in our 25 "bean towers". This was not an easy task and they did a top notch job (see one of the bottom photos). Dr. Gredler took the mower out for the first time to collect debris and has done various odds and ends throughout the day. Janice has been out gardening and continues to clean-up various beds before too much fresh growth becomes hard to work around. I took a good walk around and made some "to-do" lists. Plenty of work on the horizon for everyone. We received our new sign posts today and they look great (see to the right). Note the cool purple flower logo. The full color sign inserts (22) will come in a couple weeks and we'll get these things out there. These were all funded thru a nice grant that will certainly increase the professional look of our interpretation throughout the gardens. The irrigation guys are here today and tomorrow getting our extensive system up and running. They're replacing some damaged sprinkler heads and the time is well spent so we don't have to deal with it later in the summer. Flood waters are almost up to the footboards of our zig-zag bridge (see below) which is 30" above our comfort level.