Lots of "Busy Bees" Around Here

Mondays are certainly the busiest day with a combination of staff and volunteers. It was nice to get back out in the gardens and see the progression of blooms since just last Thursday. To the left is the 'Yellow Lantern' magnolia looking good although most magnolias have peaked already inlcuding the saucer magnolias (Magnolia x soulangiana) seen below with the neat bench quote ("Do not dishonor the earth lest you dishonor the spirit of man") in the distance (down in the fern & moss garden). I was able to get outside today and spray some herbicide here and there and am amazed (and dismayed) at how quickly the weeds are keeping up around the gardens. The rest of my day involved playing "catch up" from last week. Mary O. and Mary D. worked together on some serious weeding and both Marianne and Janice also spent time on weeding. Janice went around and did our first round of pre-emergent weed application and spread Sluggo around our hostas (to deal with the imminent slug population). Marianne continues to clean up the iris beds and did another nice job on the cutting display. Larry worked on mowing and weed whipping while Little Jerry worked on clean-up and took the new riding mower out for a spin. Marv and Terry worked on composting and brought the culvert "pillars" up for installation. To the right is Terry at 6'3" (note how good he is at bossing people around) so you can see the scale of our pillars that do extend 36" in to the ground. We still have three small pillars to install in front of the building once the tulips finish up but for the most part, our planters will be ready. We still need to figure out what we'll put in them though... The Grumpies worked primarily on backfilling the soil around the new retaining wall near the 'Dialogue' sculpture and will be challenged with putting the bluestone "paver puzzle" back together. The masons did a very nice job and we'll continue to repair and replant that area once everything is cleaned up. Many guys then shifted to mulching or composting. We had Gary, Pat, Roger, Del, Ron, Maury, Dave T., Bob A., Bob C., Vern, Jim, Dick P., Dick H., Big John, Urban, Rose, Julie, Mike, Polly and Dave J. over here today as well. It was a full crew with lots of activity occurring. Visitation continues to increase and the gardens are looking quite colorful and tidy. We still have much to do with water features and event preparations and we'll start to see the yard fill with plants over the coming months. At the bottom are two of the last three entries for our daisy art display. We'll have all the flowers out with signs by Mother's Day if not sooner.