Sun and Smiles!

Nice shot above of one of the entrances in to the Japanese garden. The day, while overcast at first, brightened up and was delightfully sunny. We had another uber-productive day with lots of volunteers here and great work by the grounds crew. Janice worked with a motivated group of a dozen or so teenagers and their teacher (Kath) from Oakhill Christian School and they removed spent annuals for over four hours (see below for the convoy...). They did a great job. Marianne was the only one motivated to work on any lights and did a nice job testing and prepping lights for our hanging icicles. See her set-up below as well.
Kay was here and did a nice job cutting back hostas, collecting debris and tidying up the Hosta Hollow. She is so thorough which is wonderful trait for fall clean-up! Rose and Urban were here and Rose has been painting some containers for next year (to the left) and will be accomplishing plenty of painting projects over the winter. Dr. Gredler ran many loads to the dump and accomplished his Friday mowing routine. Marv and Terry hauled back containers, spread straw, tidied up for our last outdoor wedding of the season and cut back 50-60 spireas (below right). Three guys from J.P. Cullen came over today and did a nice job installing a new archway/sculpture (see the bottommost picture). This is a nice feature and entranceway in to this new garden space.

While the Halloween Walk was a bit damp last night, there was some marginal attendance. Tonight and tomorrow night will be quite busy and the recently improved weather should help significantly. We've had some compliments on our container arrangements for this event (see below).