Lots of Smiles Today

We had the volunteer crew from Oakhill Christian School helping out at the gardens today. There were 19 students and their instructor Kath. This group has come every spring and fall for the past 10 years or so and they did a superb job this morning of mulching the entire Potter Daylily Collection and Palmer Drive berm. This is a huge area (5,000 sq. ft.) and their teamwork and progress was amazing. Janice helped orchestrate this morning activity with help from John and Terry too (constant loads of mulch!). We appreciate their help and they were also able to tour the gardens and have lunch at the gardens as well. Some of the photos below feature the group in action!

My photography today doesn't do justice to all the great volunteers that helped out today. The fourth photo down shows Mary and Roy in the shade garden where they did a nice job of clean-up and composted the majority of their space as well. Pat M. continued work on his giant obelisk and it looks like the second of the two will be ready to be raised and secured next week. Kathy and Eva did a great job weeding some of the brick walks down in the sunken garden which is tough work but timely as we have some early weddings coming up soon. Urban was on hand for pruning and brought his "better half", Rose, as well. Dr. Gredler did some work today and Bill O. helped tidy up too. We also saw Shirley B., Vera, Sue M., Cheryl, Maury and many others as well.

The grounds staff had a busy day. Cindy worked on repotting more of our 2015 Elephant Ear Collection, planted more pansies in our four entrance garden containers, tidied up multiple areas and watered the yard and greenhouses. Janice helped with the Oakhill students this morning, did the cutting display, prepared for the pansy sale and had other duties as well. Big John and Terry helped set up for our work day this morning and stockpiled mulch for our volunteers all morning. The guys also prepared and filled many more containers and had a significant project involving moving heavy boulders.... I helped with the Oakhill students this morning and branched off in to trying to tackle duties related to upcoming events, future labeling and preparing for the busy spring. Enjoy more color from today's garden below...