"Light(s) At The End Of The Tunnel?"

Above is a shot of our formal gardens today. In the foreground, you can see many of the lights displays. All of the colorful obelisks in the distance also have lights wrapped around them as well. If we have a good week of weather, this special event should be set up and ready to go. We hope to turn everything on and test it next week with the intent of some early evening "walk arounds" to look for problems and/or last minute corrections. We had a very chilly start to the morning which began with scraping thick frost off of the car windows. It did warm up nicely and everyone was out either gardening or working on the impending lights show. Below is a shot of the prairie this morning that I think few can contest for its significant beauty.

Randy M. was here today to repair some of our older displays. Randy was the original creator (along with his dad) of our 100+ rebar displays for the Holiday Lights Show. Many had fallen in to disrepair (after 10+ years of use) and our budget for this event can not accomodate many repairs. Randy has been nice enough to donate both time and supplies to repair and in some cases, totally re-attach new lighting on to his original frames. We appreciate his efforts, donations and support of the gardens. When I first started at RBG, Randy owned a small garden center in a neighboring town and both supplied and donated many wonderful plants to the garden. We'll see Randy tomorrow too. Larry helped Randy most of the day (as he did on Saturday too!) and helped me get some cord issues resolved out in the gardens. Marv and Terry put up and secured more trees, put up more displays, decorated trees and made a supply run as well. Marianne had a long checklist of duties for today (composed by her!) and continues to be a huge help with running cords for me too. Janice was able to do plenty of gardening today which we all joke is hard to come by when we're all working on lights! Little Jerry continued cutting back shrubs like ninebark (Physocarpus), elderberry (Sambucus sp.) and others that we address each fall. He is slowly working thru each garden area pruning as needed and will continue this approach throughout the winter. I was able to run cords for most of the day and will do the same tomorrow. Foliage color and patterns still catch my eye even as most of our deciduous trees have dropped their leaves. Coralbells (Heuchera) are semi-evergreen and will retain leaves and leaf color throughout most of the winter, only to be replaced by fresh growth in spring. We leave them alone until April when we will then judiciously cut them back as needed. The variety to the left is 'Venus' and I've admired this one for many years. Fall color continues to become more impressive with some of our ninebarks (Physocarpus opulifolius). To the right is the increasingly bright red (from summer maroon coloration) of the Summer Wine ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolus 'Seward'). This variety is nice for a 5-6', manageable version of the Diabolo ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius 'Monlo') that can get twice that size (but still has plenty of merit). Below is some delicate frost on the 'Chocolate Truffles' bugleweed (Ajuga reptans) punctuated throughout our shade garden. We had a solid turnout of volunteers today. Above are Vern and Bob A. working on what will become a vertical wall planter. They are following plans for this planter from the Chicago Botanic Garden. A grid of wood will go over what you see as green hardware cloth and heavy black plastic. Once vertical, plants will be planted thru the plastic and will grow out of the soil-filled interior of this structure. This "wall" will be solid plants (probably herbs). Note the drainage holes in the bottom. Vern and Bob join Dave and Jim in creating other raised planters and will be working on plenty of late season/winter projects as well. Rollie, Bob C., Dick P., Dick H., Big John and Ron W. all worked on the start of our deer fencing installation around 200 arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis), most of which are in hedges in the sunken, reception and formal gardens respectively. We've already had deer damage so the timing is perfect. Following the same approach as last year, the guys position and pound all the stakes first, then head back with snow fencing and other barriers to protect this "tasty temptation." See Ron W. (yellow jacket) and Dick P. (red hat) to the right. Look behind Dick to see the remnants of damage from the winter of 2008/2009! Nice shot of purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) seed heads to the left in our prairie this morning too. The birds will be enjoying these soon enough. Pat worked on raking and collecting debris while Dick H. also did some welding repair on displays. Urban continued the arduous task of "desuckering/pruning" the crabapples out in the gardens. Tom C. was here to lend his electrical repair talents and Dr. Gredler was very involved with is "trifecta" of mowing, cutting up pine boughs and running loads to the dump. Del was working on his birdhouses and Maury came to lend a hand as well. Robin continued clean-up efforts in the Scottish and color rooms gardens. We also saw Gary and Polly.

We are working hard to establish our calendar of events next year as we like to have everything on the calendar so we can promote events well in advance. Aside from the March 26 symposium, we hope to have two bus tours, evening lectures and many of the same events we've historically promoted (plant sales, dinner dance, home garden tour, etc.). Our intent is to add a "twist" to some of our older events to increase attendance and participation. We don't run shy on ideas, however, we need to be realistic about promoting and running these events in an efficient manner with limited staff. The foliage directly below is from our hybrid bellflower (Campanula hybrida 'Pink Octopus'). While I've featured the neat flowers (June) of this spreading perennial in the past, today was the first day I noticed the pink fall color and light frost contribution on the shapely leaves. Am I getting too poetic? Perhaps. The bottom photo is one of our pumpkins at home starting to wither down. My daughter and I joke that it was originally our "bat" pumpkin (what appears to be the mouth was a bat outline) but has aged in to a psychotic, cyclops, evil pumpkin now! That pumpkin does not look happy!