Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Short Week - Fun Weekend


We're back to work after a long, holiday weekend!  However, the mums above for our Fall Plant Sale needed watering over the weekend due to missed opportunities for significant precipitation.  The gardens didn't appear dry though after a weekend of irrigation and watering by grounds staff members.  The mums above are just some of the 2400 that we have ready for purchase this weekend (September 6th and 7th, 9 am - 4 pm daily).  RBG Members get first crack at them this Friday (also 9 am - 4 pm) for the Members Only Pre-Sale where they also get 10% off all purchases (for the duration of the sale as well).  Those that are interested can become members on Friday and go right in to the sale.  Today involved four plant deliveries and we'll have about the same tomorrow.  It was a busy day as our Monday volunteers shifted to Tuesday due to the holiday and our Tuesday volunteers were at the gardens too.  It made for a very productive day with significant progress out in the gardens and in the plant sale area.  Below are some additional images from this morning.

'Frydek' elephant ear (Alocasia micholitziana) - tropical
Persian shield (Strobilanthes dyerianus) - tropical
 'Autumn Colors' gloriosa daisy (Rudbeckia hirta) - annual
 'Black Coral' elephant ear (Colocasia esculenta) with 'Sedona' coleus (Solenostemon scutellarioides) - tropicals
 Above is Gary B. watering the mums this morning which is something we do twice daily.  Gary was one of many volunteers helping out today.  We also had some great help from the ladies as well.  Below is Kathy working in the sunken garden and the next photo shows Eva in the same garden.  The ladies did a great job tidying that area which seems to get covered with leaves daily.  The third photo down shows Ron R. (left) and Ron P. collecting leaves in the Japanese garden.  The guys brought back a lot of debris and our water feature guy (Shawn) was tidying up the water features in that area as well.  The fourth photo down shows Kay tidying up her section of the shade garden which continues to get lots of cottonwood (Populus deltoides) leaves fluttering down.  Kay brought back lots of loads of debris.  The fifth photo down shows Vicki who also collected her share of leaves from various areas.  Vern, Dave, Bob K. and Jim continued work on some carpentry projects and Maury worked on some painting and trips for supplies.  Del worked on processing labels and tidying around the Horticulture Center.  Dick H. had various projects and helped us unload plants in the afternoon.  Gary S. stopped by to get our plant sale cash registers ready to go and we also saw Dr. Yahr, Bev D., Rollie, Tina B., Mary Kay T., Polly and many others today.






The grounds staff (Larry, Big John, Jenny, Janice, Terry, Cindy and Cheryl) were all very flexible with a wide range of gardening tasks and plant sale duties.  John and Terry picked up plants and everyone was able to accomplish some degree of garden clean-up as well.  We also did some mowing, watering and other tasks.  I was focused on plant sale preparations which will dominate my time for the remainder of the week.  Below are more photos from this morning.

'Cheyenne Sky' switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) - perennial
'Lemon Queen' perennial sunflower (Helianthus hybrida)
'Firecracker' variegated fuchsia (Fuchsia triphylla) - annual

No comments: