Snow Is No Obstacle

We had about 2" of fluffy snow overnight on Friday and then another 3" or so for this morning.  At least it was light and easy to clear both at the gardens and at home!  Larry and Dick H. dealt with the Horticulture Center Parking lot in short order with Bill O. and Jim D. (new Grumpy) doing more touch up and shoveling around the Parker Education Center.  The snow didn't keep Larry H., Urban, Jim D. and Eugene from heading out in to the gardens and bringing in more lights from the entrance garden.  With the Holiday Lights Show (HLS) obligations now complete with our 2013 rentals, we're clearing everything out of the gardens as time (and the weather) allows.  Most of the lights are in but we still have displays and other elements to retrieve. The carpenters had to make more handy "wrapping boards" which are a great way to coil and store light strands.  Dave and Jim worked on other carpentry projects too and Vern (below) worked with Ron (left) on more bench sanding.  We hope to have all of our benches (teak, cedar and pine) totally refurbished by spring which is no small task.  Eugene also helped Del disassemble more HLS deer for storage.  Gary (two photos down) worked on more volunteer labels for our assigned gardeners that have specific areas to tend and maintain.  Bill O. helped Larry this afternoon and we also had Pat, Dr. Gredler and Rose painting obelisks and they can be seen directly above from left to right.  We passed sustenance to Rose as needed.  Janice came in to work on seeds and other projects and we also saw Mary W., Denise and many others...

I worked on the last of my WPT Garden Expo (www.wigardenexpo.com/) details this morning while Larry and Bill started putting needed supplies in our trailer for transport to Madison on Thursday morning for Expo set-up.  The guide seen above was in every Wisconsin State Journal this past Sunday and will be the guide for the event.  I hope this event sees another record turnout this year.  I believe there were over 21,000 in attendance last year.  Denise and I are still designing our booth layout but it should be nice.  Olbrich Botanical Gardens has been kind enough to lend us some plants for the booth as we would have difficulty transporting plants back and forth.  My talk on Vertical Gardening will be at 4:30 pm this Saturday.  This is one of four that I'll give over the three days.  My first talk on Vertical Gardening was one year ago at the Garden Expo and it was a packed room.  I made up a new version of this talk for this year using lots of my images from travels last year to the Netherlands and a summer trip to Michigan  The first two photos below were at Keukenhof (Netherlands) with the third photo from the Floriade (Netherlands).  I saw lots of vertical gardening situations at both of those gardens/events but also around the landscape in general.  The fourth photo down shows a Woolly Pocket (www.woollypocket.com/) planter at the Michigan State University 4H Children's Garden and the last two photos were from Dow Gardens in Midland, MI.  I have no shortage of ideas for vertical gardening opportunities here at the gardens now!