Ready For The Expo

We're packed and ready to head up to the Garden Expo tomorrow at the Alliant Energy Center (Madison, WI). Mike, Big John, Dick P. and I will get everything set up in the morning and our booth will be staffed with volunteers and various staff during this Friday night thru Sunday event. It really is a nice event with many vendors and informational booths along with seminars regarding many topics. Nice shot above of a stonecrop (or sedum) that is relatively new for us. This is Sedum telephium subsp. ruprechtii 'Hab Gray' that has a dusky, smokey gray leaf and flower clusters aging from pink to creamy yellow. So many catalogs and garden centers are offering a wide range of sedums and I like to focus on those with interesting foliage as well, particularly for those that flower later in the year. Look for many of the dark, maroon-leaf varieties as well (I'll show my favorites soon). 'Hab Gray' is beautiful even without blooms and will reach 20" in height over the summer. Sedums will take tough soils and be wary of placing them in "ultra-rich" soils as they get tall and floppy. Notice our Grumpies below working on various projects today. They look like a bunch of elves in their workshop. From left to right we have Maury, Urban, Dr. Gredler, Del and Dick W. Dick is the only one not in the witness protection program, hence his "face forward pose"... Color might be lacking outside but not in our Horticulture Center! Marianne came in to help with seeds and Janice was here to work on our spring plant sale and had her volunteer group come to package seeds (cucumber and gourd) for our upcoming plant sale too. Marv helped Larry pack up the Expo trailer and Little Jerry was out pruning and bringing in more lights. Rose came in to paint later with Dr. Greder and the carpenter quartet worked on various projects as well. Lisa came in to discuss our daylily collection. She is doing an awesome job inventorying, assessing, confirming and evaluating our collection with the intent of improving the "integrity" (and content) of that collection. We also saw Dick H, Bill O., Jumbo Jim and Bob T. here today. See some of our volunteers in action today. Bob A. (sanding with vigor) to the left and Marianne (seed sorting with a smile) to the right. It's great to feel the momentum and energy building as we head towards spring. We have a full plate as usual but I can't say enough about how important our volunteers are on a daily basis here at Rotary Botanical Gardens. Whether they are gardening, woodworking, researching, giving tours, providing education, etc., RBG would not be the place it is (or will be) without these dedicated people. And most importantly, they also make me look good too. See below for a sneak peak of the gardens only 15.5 weeks away...those are ornamental onions (Allium 'Purple Sensation') from last year but they'll be back.