Friday, January 14, 2011

Next Wednesday (January 19)

2011 will be an exciting year for education at the garden. The first of our twelve monthly lectures will be held next Wednesday night starting at 6 pm. The topic is "Moss Gardening" and will be given by Dale Sievert (seen to the right) of Waukesha, WI. The three images here are from his garden which I visited in 2008 and 2010 with the grounds staff. Dale was extremely cordial and quite modest regarding his 1 acre masterpiece which not only contains lots of moss but many different garden spaces and themes. Dale has been to RBG many times and travels extensively to visit and photograph other gardens and destinations. His photography is quite impressive as well. Dale is a retired economics instructor from the Milwaukee Area Technical College but has a vast horticultural knowledge as well. I've promoted this topic heavily and will do the same for the other eleven as it is vital to have good attendance at these informative (and affordable) presentations (free for RBG members, $5 for others). No RSVP required, just show up at the Parker Education Center. We didn't have a lot of volunteers at the Horticulture Center today but the quiet allowed me to finish our largest seed order which included about 150 varieties of various items. As I sift thru the catalogs, I'm looking for collections-based plants (yellow/blue collection, scented, All-America Selections, etc.) as well as cool new varieties. I'll continue to peck thru the other 40 catalogs next week and we'll end up with over 800 varieties of seed grown plants is my guess. Rose came in to do some painting of the culvert planters while Dr. Gredler continued his painting of obelisks. He finished his dark blue painting but is still in the blue range with a lighter blue for other structures. Dick H. came in to fix the snowblower on the Grasshopper mower and Bill O. was a big help doing various things around the shop. We also saw Maury, Big John and Little Jerry. Little Jerry is retiring from being a paid groundsperson but we hope to have him around often to consult as a volunteer and keep everyone honest around here. We appreciate all he has done for the gardens both as a volunteer and groundsperson. Below is a sample of our new labels that will be churned out in February when Jenny gets back. Our goal is to install 200 of the woody labels like this sample and 2,000 perennial labels in 2011. Our limitation right now is data verification (checking proper plant nomenclature) and data entry by Jenny and Gary. I think I'm the factor slowing things down as I juggle 27 balls instead of the normal 16. Our garden labeling program will continue to improve as we replace labels and Luis O. continues his woody plant inventory.For those that might be interested, our brochure for the spring symposium ("Your Garden - Maximized!") has been printed and is available as a hard copy from our gift shop or we can certainly mail it as well. It also exists on our website. We've had a huge response thus far in terms of registration and I don't think we'll have any problem filling our maximum attendance of 250. I've already started planning the November 5th symposium which will be all about plants. I have two "big name" speakers already lined up. We'll have the fall symposium organized by March so we can promote it early to our spring symposium attendees! To the right is some worm tea that we'll be selling at our spring sale. This is a new twist at our sale and we'll also be selling worm castings. Both of these organic products have significant value when used properly in the garden. I'll blog in the future about both products or feel free to do some research on your own. Another neat component of the spring sale (May 14 & 15 with a presale on the 13th for RBG members) will be a "plant your own container" option with a focus on the veggies, compact vegetables and herbs in the plant sale. As always, more details will follow both on the blog and our website. Below is our new plan for the North Point Garden which will be tackled in early spring. Features include boxwood defined annual beds, a bluestone patio, six benches, eight Adirondack chairs, 12 fancy containers, scented plants, trees, shrubs, grasses, bulbs and support features like irrigation and power access. This will be a neat addition to our current garden and the view out across the water is awesome.

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