A Day Late!

Nice fall color on the Pacific Sunset hybrid maple (Acer truncatum x platanoides 'Warrenred') out in the arboretum Monday. This hybrid is a cross between the Shantung maple and Norway maple and "colors up" quite late but in vivid fashion! I had all of these photos loaded yesterday with the intent of finishing the blog last night.....Well, I forgot and was wrapped up in preparations for my talk tonight (Tuesday) on Late Season Interest in the garden. We turned the entire Holiday Light Show (HLS) on and went around to adjust, correct and tweak. We have some issues but nothing out of the ordinary. Our test early in the evening went well and the show is spectacular! The updates below are for Monday, November 16th.

Lloyd (above) and Alan (below) continued working on leaf and debris clean-up out in the gardens. Kay and Kathy (second photo down) also continued gardening in a couple areas and have no trouble collecting a cart-load of debris quickly! Dr. Gredler and Rollie were out mowing and Bill O. came in to check garbage cans out in the gardens. Eva (third photo down) cleaned and organized tools while Patrea (fourth photo down) continues to repair and pack away lights. We like to keep extras ready and everything we don't use for the HLS is still tested, repaired and ready for action. Urban (fifth photo down) came in for some pruning in the afternoon. Maury ran more errands for us and we also saw John J. and many others today. Maury and Dick H. also worked on some projects. The grounds staff of Big John, Terry, Bob K., Cindy, Larry H. and myself all worked on HLS tasks as we're almost ready to ROCK & ROLL. Most of the staff finishes the 2015 season this week.