Drizzling....Sums It Up

Above is a shot of many of our wonderful youth education volunteers going thru a training this afternoon for our upcoming "Plants Program". There was a training this morning but the weather was a steady drizzle until lunch time. Kris Koch, our new Education Coordinator, is fourth from the right. I can't say enough about all of these volunteers and special thanks to Mary (third from the left) and Bev (fourth from the left) for all their hard work keeping this program organized and on track. Nice shot to the right of the fragrant blooms of the zen magnolia (Magnolia zenii) in our Hosta Hollow garden. While this looks like any magnolia, I've been waiting for years to see blooms on this woody plant. I believe we planted it as a little stick almost 10 years ago and now, at about 10' tall, it's showing some nice flowers. This magnolia is not only very rare, both in its native China and in cultivation, but is only marginally hardy here. Glad it caught my eye for a quick photo.

Despite the steady drizzle, all of us donned our rain coats and headed out in to the gardens. Marv, Terry, Marianne, Big John, Larry and I were all on duty and we made the best of the day. The first order of business was to plant almost all of our containers with a neat ornamental mustard (Brassica juncea) called 'Brazen Brass' which was featured in a previous blog. We used to have the budget to plant our containers with an early display (pansies, etc.) which would later be transitioned in early June. Times have been tight but we were able to secure a couple hundred of these mustards that I had custom grown for us after seeing them last spring at the Chicago Botanic Garden. They are a cool season plant and the leaves are edible and add a tangy zip to any salad (I think Big John tried it and said it wasn't bad). John, Marv, Terry and Marianne all planted containers this morning and John added many along our lower larch wall. These will really look dynamite by Mother's Day and it will be nice to re-establish early container interest and impact again at RBG before we start even planting our summer annuals. Nice shot to the left of the emerging needles of the weeping European larch (Larix decidua 'Pendula'). Big John also worked on digging out some invasive chives while Marv and Terry installed more butterflies and did a nice job removing large, crumbling rocks from the entrance garden and getting some others in place. Marianne did her cutting display and also continues "swapping out" the new daylily labels. Larry's day was absorbed in the sunken garden getting that water feature up and running and he's also working on modifying our compressors for our pond aerators. He also took the time (thankfully) to bring in our tender plants due to the potential 37 degrees F we may receive tonight. I fertilized most of our lawns, had some meetings and worked with Luis (to the right) on verifying woody plants in the Japanese Garden. Luis is doing a remarkable job of essentially reinventorying all the woody plants in the garden which is no small task. We also saw Mary W., Paul T., Bill, Art and our new fundraising/special events co-worker, Amanda. The big news is that Kay has returned and the weeds rightfully trembled as she headed out in to the shade garden. Needless to say, it wasn't pretty... Below is another shot of the early, dark foliage of 'Britt Marie Crawford' ligularia (Ligularia dentata). Maples have cool flowers too; even boxelders (Acer negundo)! Further below are the dangling flowers of our golden boxelder (Acer negundo 'Kelley's Gold') We've had plenty of calls regarding our extended tree sale which will be held this Friday and Saturday from 8 am - 2 pm. We are still in need of volunteers on both days and are struggling to get volunteers for our spring plant sale on May 13, 14 and 15. Our spring sale typically has over 100 slots to fill and we'll be focusing on this very intensely over the next week. There are no shortage of tasks coming up and once the spring plant sale is over, we'll really focus on all of our spring planting. It usually takes between 6 and 8 weeks to get all of our planting completed and that includes the five, sequential work days that we have on Saturday mornings (8 am - noon) over the last two Saturdays in May and the first three in June. We've had up to 50 people planting at one time and we sure get plenty in the ground if we're organized and ready to roll. To the right are the emerging fiddleheads of the maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum) which is probably my favorite native fern. Below are some recent shots during our days of April showers.