Email Dependency

I missed the last couple of blogs as my entire internet access was down for the past couple days. It is amazing how dependent you become on email communication and internet access. I've spent a good portion of the day catching up! I'm also finishing a presentation (for Saturday) and am getting our incoming plant labels organized for Jenny. Of course my woes haven't affected the white crocus (Crocus sp.) above and many of our other earliest bulbs. The favorite flower I've seen was spotted last Thurs. (see below) and is our first plywood flower back for our "Petal Thru the Garden" community art display. A group of young adults and teenage youth worked on this and it looks great. This is made with colored popcorn kernels and other seeds! It will be exciting to have all 27 flowers back in the next couple of weeks so we can have them ready to be placed in the gardens before Mother's Day. Today was a nice sunny day and our snowy weekend was pretty tame to be honest. We had some minor snow and ice over Friday night in to Saturday morning but everything was melted off quickly and Sunday was similar to today, although still cooler than last week. Marianne worked on her fern labels while Marv and Terry started hauling out our containers. Big John, Del and Ron W. started bringing in our snow fence deer barriers and we'll continue that project thru the week. Little Jerry and Urban did some pruning while Larry worked on various projects that are related to work occuring here later in the week (compost and bark deliveries and irrigation start up). Ron B., a returning Grumpy, popped in and will re-join the crew shortly and Bill was in later to keep cutting down ornamental grasses. Dr. Gredler finished sealing the very last of the obelisks for the year and Dick H. worked on some truck repairs/improvements. For the carpenters, it was more arch work as usual. The hellebores (Helleborus orientalis) are blooming! See below for a shot I took (from sidewalk level on my side) at Dave W.'s house near my neighborhood. Our hellebores at RBG are hitting stride but are not in as warm of a location as they are at Dave's house. Love this long-lived perennial! Wish I could type more but am finishing the game of catching up!