Cold and Slick Today

The roads were icy this morning as was my vehicle. We've had freezing rain and drizzle over the past 48 hours or so. We did have a nice stretch of warm weather last week although I don't like to see so much snow melt away this early. Below and to the right are the daffodils (Narcissus) starting to sprout along the sunny side of my house. They thought it was early April just recently I'm sure and a return to average temperatures should slow them down a bit. Above are just some of the seeds that Marianne and I are sorting thru this week. These will still be sorted and labeled (different color labels) depending on their ultimate collection designation (edibles, plant sale, trials, etc.) and then will be sorted by grower. Our goal is to get the seeds to our growers by next week which is later than usual but still in enough time for them to incorporate them in to their spring plans.

We had a nice turnout of volunteers today. Janice was here most of the day working on plant sale signs while Kay continued processing labels for our spring plant sale vegetables. Marianne worked on making labels and we sorted seeds most of the morning. Dr. Gredler, Marv and Pat worked on repainting obelisks (see below) while the carpenters (Dave, Jim, Bob A. and Vern) started on their custom cedar benches. We also saw Big John, Gary, Urban and Bill today. Our Horticulture Therapy Committee is meeting again today and we'll keep up momentum with important garden development and programming initiatives that are recommended as a result of this committee's recommendations.

Don't forget Dave Wanninger's talk this Wednesday evening (6 pm - 8 pm) on Woody Plants at the Parker Education Center. Free for RBG Members and $5 for all others. Call me at (608) 754-1779 with any questions. Check out our spring tree sale information on the website too as we're partnering with the Golden Kiwanis club to sell 10,000 small trees this April. All information regarding this opportunity is on our website.