Full Speed Ahead

The threat of rain materialized right around the lunch hour although we had some great progress out in the gardens before the skies really darkened. The afternoon drizzle was welcome. The Easter weekend was quite sunny and warm and the gardens responded with more bursts of color like the bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) seen above and the early 'Stresa' tulip (Tulipa) seen below. Our daffodils (Narcissus) are really filling out nicely (see second photo down) and can be seen throughout the gardens approaching peak. I had my camera with me all day and was able to capture many of these early bloomers and much of our volunteer efforts as well (seen further down).

The grounds staff had a busy day today. Cindy worked on tidying multiple garden areas and moved inside when the rain arrived to plant up dahlias and accomplish some office tasks. Larry helped with many projects including the repair of our automated gate and hauling various materials around. Big John and Terry placed and filled more containers, secured obelisks and had some errands to run as well. I spent a good portion of the morning outside planning some of our spring planting and collections layouts. I'm also finalizing details for our Spring Plant Sale and Spring Tree Sale, both of which will be held over Mother's Day weekend (see our website for the details regarding both of these vital fundraisers for RBG!).

Above are Eva (left) and Shirley who started cleaning the leaves out of our streams and water features. We're hoping to have all of our water features cleaned up and flowing by the Mother's Day weekend. We had some great painting help from Pat (surprised look below!), Gene, Gary B. and Pat M. Ron Y., Dave and Jim worked on various projects including some work on the Adirondack chairs that are part of the Garden Art Project celebrating our 25th Anniversary. Ron R. and Ron W. did some work on our chairs and tables out on the terrace and later helped with other clean-up efforts. The second photo down shows Bob C. (foreground) and Lloyd removing bricks from a path in front of the Parker Education Center. This path and two others will be redone with concrete in the coming week or so. The guys did a nice job and got some help from others as well. Dick H. took many loads of debris to the dump and Larry H. and Kevin C. (third photo down) worked on composting the remainder of the sunken garden. Rollie was in to help and Maury ran more errands for us. Dr. Gredler (fourth photo down) was out mowing and enjoying the fresh air after four months of painting in the Horticulture Center. Bob K. helped with some electrical issues and we had many more visitors as well including Jason and Bill O. Some other flower photos from today can be seen further below.