Looming Snow?

We had some snowflakes come down today but it looks like a larger system will provide us with snow tomorrow night and in to Thursday morning.  With the next showing of the Holiday Lights Show (HLS) on Thursday evening (4:30 pm - 8 pm), we'll be spending time clearing the paths and making sure they're safe and passable.  We had a skeleton crew today although plenty of work was accomplished.  The top photo shows our shovels poised and ready to go.  If we get heavy snow, hopefully we'll have some volunteer help with clearing paths.  Directly above is Dr. Gredler's recent painting project which involves painting this trash bin orange (originally powder blue) to coincide with our color theme in the entrance garden.  His next projects are in the distance as all of those cucumber supports will need another coat of paint.  Aside from Dr. Gredler, Del was in to continue working on more reindeer cutouts.  There has been a high demand for these deer and Del has been feverishly working to produce more for our Garden Gallery gift shop.  Our gift shop also has lots of neat, locally made merchandise worthy of consideration.  Urban went out in the gardens to prune and Maury was in briefly for some errands.  Larry did some work out in the gardens and is starting to service our vehicles in the Horticulture Center.  We also saw Kris K., Dick H. and some others today.  Late yesterday afternoon, we also had a productive meeting of our Horticultural Therapy Committee which included Janice, Art, Karen B., Darcie O., Mary W. and Cindy B.  Directly below are two of the recently constructed, sharp, pinnacle tops for our eight new, narrow obelisks (7' tall) that will be used out in the gardens next year. 

I'm continuing to work on seed ordering and am preparing presentations for the 2013 Garden Expo which is hosted by Wisconsin Public Television at the Alliant Energy Center (Exhibition Hall) in Madison this February (8th-10th).  I'm speaking on Trendy Annuals and Vertical Gardening which are topics I usually prepare for this event.  However, I'm also presenting on Annual Grasses for the Garden and Container which should be a fun topic as well and new for me.  RBG always has an information booth at the Expo which is a great way to encourage visitors to come see the gardens.  With attendance numbers over 20,000 each year, this event is quite popular and Shelley Ryan, host/producer of The Wisconsin Gardener show, has helped make this event what it has become over the years.  Further below are some more images of the HLS which should see some serious attendance numbers for the remainder of the event (details at www.rotarybotanicalgardens.org).