Monday, January 23, 2012

A "Sleety" Day

Yesterday was primarily a drizzle which extended thru the evening to this morning. Mother Nature then couldn't decide between rain, sleet and snow as we saw all of it throughout most of the morning. Warmer temperatures did accomodate a couple guys that went out in to the gardens. I'm glad Larry spread some sand/salt across our parking lot this morning as it was quick slick. We did have a great crew of volunteers today although I spent almost the entire day ordering seeds and finishing my big seed order. Directly above is Dr. Gredler converting one of our 9' yellow obelisks from the Nancy Yahr Memorial Children's garden to a nice lime. Doesn't he look happy!? To the left is just one of the many plants I've re-ordered for 2012. This is the dinosaur kale (Brassica oleracea 'Lacinato') that was part of our blue/yellow theme last year and received lots of attention.


Larry worked on helping coordinate the many projects going on this morning and got out in the gardens with Bill O. as well. Both guys had some indoor afternoon work as well. Marv and Dennis went out to continue taking down the last remnants of the Holiday Lights Show (HLS). With lights in the entrance garden, around the Parker Education Center and in the English cottage garden, there was plenty to retrieve. I can remember years gone by when January was so snowy and cold that we hadn't even taken anything down at this point in the month. Amazing that it is almost complete. Pat and Urban were out helping collect lights, cords, obelisks, etc. from the HLS. To the right is Dick W. cutting out some reindeer ears as he and Del continue to make more cutouts for future sales. Dave, Vern, Bob A. and Jim continued repairs on our garbage & recycling bins (directly below). The guys are so handy. Dick H. and Dick P. started cutting our recently delivered strap aluminum in the stake heights for our woody plant labels. Dick H. and Bill also worked on some vehicles as well. Luis was in the office this morning (lower left) entering more sign information to be engraved later this week. Marianne helped process seed orders (lower right), prepare plant labels and did a nice job tidying up in the break room. Mary W. and her friend (Larry) stopped by in the afternoon. We also saw Gary S. today as he broke away from his interim Executive Director position to have break with the guys. A big part of my seed order today (Ivy Garth) involved the start of orders for our spring plant sale. My final FAXed order was 11 pages! This will be the sixth spring plant sale in a row that we've offered a wide range of vegetables and herbs. Previous spring plant sales years ago focused on herbs and annuals although we found that so many outfits sell annuals that we wanted to specialize a bit more with our offerings. This sale, held on May 12th and 13th (9 am - 4 pm daily) at the Horticulture Center, will also have a wide range of gallon-sized perennials. We offered this component last year and it was well received. RBG Friends Members are invited to our spring plant sale preview on Friday, May 11th (also 9 am - 4 pm) where they will get the first look at availability and receive a 10% discount that day (and throughout the sale). I'm very excited about the offerings which not only include heirloom tomatoes, hot peppers and herbs but a wide range of "smaller statured" vegetable varieties that are suitable for the container, basket, window box and tight spot in general. Once Janice finalized the final information sheets in February, we'll get them on the website. Just about everything we sell at the sale will be represented somewhere out in the gardens as many will be featured in our Ornamental Edible & Compact Vegetable Display. I ordered a nice assortment of trailing tomatoes too that we'll feature out in the gardens (and sell). Below are some shots from the spring plant sale last year. I've put in an early request for decent weather as we've not had the best luck when the sale has been over the Mother's Day weekend as it is this year.

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