Dismantling Progresses

Today was very productive in the office for me and we had some nice help out in the gardens as we continue to take down, bring in and process the lights show elements for storage. Of course, when I say "we", I'm not referring to "me". I've been asked to clarify this by those that risk frostbite to take this show down every winter. I must have sent 100 emails today as I continued to coordinate the bus trip, March symposium and evening seminars for 2011. Many of these I've mentioned in very recent blog postings. I'm also continuing to get seed orders together and we hope to have all seed ordered by the end of next week if possible. We'll need to finalize our collection and plant sale needs first but are on track thus far. These images show just some of the items coming back inside from the gardens. Many of the cords and lights need to be thawed out before they can be coiled up and stored so we have a 3 step process of retrieval/hauling, thawing and finally the processing for storage. We should have a good turnout of volunteers tomorrow although I'm working from home with the intent of finishing a landscape design for our new "North Point Garden". This is the space where the carpenters built that nice structure and the rock retaining wall was installed along the shoreline. We received a generous contribution (anonymous) to finish that garden space and will sink our teeth in to it this spring.

Rose and Urban came in today to put the final coat of "baby blue" on three of the five large culvert planters. I think they look great (as seen below) and of course, the unpainted side will be underground! They'll work on the other two shortly and we'll be resealing and repainting many of the obelisks too as they come back and are undecorated by Dr. Gredler, who was also here today. Larry, Bill, Marv and Pat were all here to head out in to the gardens and they brought back lots of lights and cords. We have to leave a small portion of the show up for a late month rental in three weeks but 90% of the event can come down. Again, we're fortunate with the weather in terms of access out in the gardens and not too much snow and ice (yet!). We also saw Bill, Big John, Maury and Vern today. Vern is refinishing an oak desk for the visitors center and will be refinishing other furniture as needed. I had some nice computer upgrades late yesterday (thanks Brandon) and our systems at the horticulture center have more speed and memory which will be vital for data storage (pictures, label files, etc.).