The Advent Of Admissions

Many of the daffodils (Narcissus) have begun blooming and will continue to peak over the next two weeks or so. We have thousands of daffodils in our woodland areas and they sure offer some nice color before other perennials steal the show. Tuesdays are productive around here but we typically have a smaller crew overall. Janice is out tidying up the Japanese garden with Kristine while Jenny is working on new labels for the Scottish garden. Larry spent the morning moving things out of our maintenance building so we can put some tender plants in there. We are receiving a delivery from Bluebird Nursery (Nebraska) today but many of the plants are tropical and will have to be kept away from cool temperatures and frost. Bob is working on re-mulching the arboretum while Bill is out tidying up various gardens. Dr. Gredler is out working on turf issues and we had a garden development committee meeting this morning as well.

Tomorrow is the beginning of admissions-based entry at Rotary Gardens. Visitors can become Friends Members and receive free admission as well as many other benefits. Volunteers can also earn free admission with a certain amount of volunteer hours worked at the gardens. There will be various free days and other opportunities for reduced or free admission. Despite some of the criticism regarding admissions here at the gardens, the financial reality is sobering and we all feel there is "value" in visiting the gardens. Most botanic gardens of our size/stature that don't receive tax-dollar support already charge admissions. This will be the year to streamline the process and "iron out the bugs" regarding this new entry policy. Our east gate now has the sign to the right which will direct visitors to the primary entry point. Visitors would historically have access from this end but not any more (with few exceptions). We hope the adjustment period for staff, volunteers and the visiting public will be minimal.

I was reading an interesting article on the increased popularity of home vegetable gardening this year and it's estimated that 7 million more Americans plan on growing their own fruits, vegetables and herbs in 2009. This figure is up 19% from last year. Sales in vegetable seeds are up over 40% this year and some of the reasons for growing food went beyond the recession. They included "wanted better tasting food", "to save money on food bills", "for better quality food" and "to grow food they know is safe". This is a good bandwagon to jump on! See some of our produce from a couple years ago below.

Chilly And Overcast

Nice shot of more hellebores (Helleborus orientalis) above. We have some great clumps out there and of course only our earliest of visitors gets to enjoy the blooms. These are truly, long-lived, stalwart perennials for our gardens. With a chance of rain today, everyone is out working before we get the rain (which is much needed). We haven't had much for April showers yet and while we've been happy about our flood levels going down, we sure could use a good soaker out in the gardens. Our earliest blooming plants continue to add color almost daily although the end of the month and early May will really bring on a "flush". Nice miniature daffodils in our alpine garden can be seen below.
Marv and Terry are out hauling containers and filling them with soil. We normally would have a spring display in most of our containers but due to budget restrictions, we'll skip spring and plant them up for the summer display in a month or so. The guys are custom mixing our soil blend for the containers and we'll have them all ready to go in short order. Larry is working on odds and ends while Janice and Marianne are out, continuing to tidy up in various garden areas. The ladies have done a nice job and Janice will continue to work on moss establishment in our fern garden while Marianne starts our cutting display this week. Our display table includes a map and many vases for fresh samples. Marianne has an eye for arranging and comes up with some nice samples to help guide visitors to what's in bloom or of interest that time of the year. Jerry is out looking for some projects and continues to heal prior to his return. The Grumpies are here today with Ron, Bill, Gary and Charlie all working on composting around our hort center beds (see picture to the left) while Maury, Bob T., Terry T. and Dick H. work on hauling off our excess metal and wood junk that has accumulated around our facility. We like to tidy up every spring are are hoping to give away and/or recycle most of what we're getting rid of. Bob A., Del, Urban and Rose are all working on painting our new plant sale tables while Dave, Jim and Vern are working on carpentry projects or playing tic-tac-toe (see below). What a great crew. Admissions implementation starts this Wednesday so we'll have to be ready for the challenges that this shift will create for everyone. I think we've prepared well although there will undoubtably be challenges along the road (the road to financial security here too!).

Crisp And Clear

Nice shot of the golden mugo pine (Pinus mugo 'Aurea') above which will turn more green during the summer months. It looks great in winter and carries that golden glow well thru June. Don't ever forget the value of conifers for color and form (not just function!). Today is clear and crisp and it looks to be a great Easter weekend. Larry and Janice are here today and the compost sale is getting some business this morning. Cindy and Carol are working the checkout with Janice helping as a back-up. Urban and Rose are painting our new plant sale tables and Bill and Maury have been around helping as well. Dr. Gredler continues to work on his lawns and the Janesville Area Herb Society is meeting for their first work day out in the gardens. Lots of action this Saturday. Nice shots below of another glory-in-the-snow (Chionodoxa sardensis) although there is no snow in sight. Imagine this bright blue popping out of a thin layer of white snow though! These bulbs have been in here for 10 years and have lasted nicely. Note the "bulb lawn" of Siberian squill (Scilla siberica) at the bottom!

Nice Closure To A Productive Week!

Above is one of our new signs that will be installed early next week in anticipation of the implementation of admissions. We have many new signs that will direct visitors to appropriate entrances and exits depending on what other events may be happening. We realize there will be some issues to deal with but have tried to prepare well for this shift in our entrance policies.

Great day today again in terms of weather and productivity. Marv and Terry transplanted an American smokebush (Cotinus obovatus) this morning that was removed from a different area on Wednesday by a tree spade. The guys are trying to finish their edging project today as well. Marianne and Janice have been out targeting some of our remaining garden clean-up. I've been finalizing information for our website regarding our seasonal plant collection and other collections. Dr. Gredler has been working on various projects and both Maury and Bob T. popped in as well. Larry, Janice and Bob will have plenty to do tomorrow and we're looking forward to our second Saturday (hopefully successful!) of our bagged compost sale. Nice shot to the left of Marv with his homemade coldframe. He had some pretty impressive tomatoes and tropicals in this frame and while having to do some shuffling around on the coldest nights, this demostrates a cost-effective way to get a jump start on spring with early starts and encouragement of select plants.


Consider adding a rain barrel to your home garden this year (see picture to the right). What a great way to conserve and utilize rainfall from an impervious surface (your roof) for the benefit of your garden. Some brief benefits of rain barrels can be seen at www.swfwmd.state.fl.us/conservation/rainbarrel/ and while not a new technology or idea, the merits of including something like this should be evident. I have one at home and use the collected water for all my container plantings. Save $ off your water bill and recycle water that would end up in storm sewers and possible be a contributor to erosion and other negative impacts. Our moss island is greening up nicely (see below) and you'll notice moss in your landscape green up well before your turf. What a great groundcover (in select instances!).

Ditto Day

Another beautiful day, very similar to yesterday although maybe a bit warmer. Bad news above with the deer (or maybe rabbits) mowing down our emerging tulips. These should still bloom unless the emerging buds are eaten as well. We normally don't see much of this and we've hoped that warming temperatures would keep the deer elsewhere. However, it seems their "winter travel pattern" keeps them coming in at night for a snack. I used to work at Fernwood Botanic Garden (www.fernwoodbotanical.org/) in Niles, MI (worth a visit) that had many natural areas and lots of deer. We didn't even bother with tulips as we never saw any blooms. I hope we're not headed that way here at Rotary Gardens, particularly since we have about 20,000 tulips poking out of the ground right now. Note the slow-release fertilizer to the left. This encapsulated fertilizer releases nutrients over a 3-4 month period with soil temperatures at 70 degrees F or above. We use this fertilizer strictly in our containers and will incorporate it throughout our potting mixes as we prepare containers for spring planting. This is a balanced mix and you can see the N-P-K (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) ratio on the bag. Be wary of using too much fertilizer out in your landscape and pay particular attention to fertilizers that are high in phosphorus. Most of our soils have ample phosphate levels and excessive phosphates continue to pollute lakes, rivers, streams and have negative environmental effects. Look in to this topic more in depth and see what you can do to help avoid this continuing issue. Nice shot of glory-of-the-snow (Chionodoxa sp.) mix to the right. I'm using some pictures from last year as my Olympus is on the fritz. Plenty of color emerging!

Great Grumpy day with the carpenters working on signs, tables and other projects. The guys hauled out benches, mulched trees in the arboretum and started to compost our vegetable beds which we'll rototill later next week. Janice has been tidying up out in the gardens and Larry continues to work on vehicles and equipment. Little Jerry was here for a bit and Jim H. has four RECAPPERS out in the gardens cleaning our ponds and other water features. Great volunteer turnout today and what a nice day to get outside! Nice shot of crocus at Dale's garden in Waukesha.

A Lovely Spring Day

What a perfect day despite a chilly start. The weather is sunny and around 50 degrees F which is perfect gardening weather for Wisconsinites. Nice crocus above although its days are numbered once found by the rabbits! Marv and Terry continue to do a great job on this edging project around our wishing well garden. They're using old beams from our pergola that blew down in a windstorm almost 9 years ago. This lumber has been sitting idle and the guys sure recycled these elements for a good purpose. Marianne continues her attention to fine detail with garden clean-up and is in the process of adding "backup labels" for our 600 new irises. We sure don't want to lose track regarding the various varieties. She also has made a nice map of all the iris beds which will be quite helpful. Bill and Dr. Gredler have been doing odd jobs around the gardens and Maury has been out picking up supplies for various projects. Larry is taking time to get all our vehicles and mowers ready for the spring push. Little Jerry is here (broken arm and all) to check out the Japanese garden and prepare for his return to action in a couple weeks.

To the left is the golden Canadian hemlock (Tsuga canadensis 'Golden Splendor') which has bright yellow spring growth but eventually fades to a green (with small hints of gold) by late summer. So many of us will purchase plants for the benefit of fall color but many woodies and perennials also have interesting spring foliage. Our hot WI summers tend to create a fading but the merit in spring is evident. Check out our custom potting bench to the right. We've been potting up tropical bulbs like caladiums and elephant ears (Colocasia esculenta) as they arrive so we can get some early growth on them prior to planting. We also pot up smaller perennials and some seeds in the coming weeks. We've had lots of comments about our cool "bean towers" around our horticulture center. Each one of these will support an heirloom runner or pole bean. See www.rotarygardens.org/images/2009%20Pole%20Beans.pdf for a listing of the varieties. Incidentally, we'll be selling little seed packets of each of these varieties at our spring plant sale (May 15-17). Some recent flooding pictures are at the bottom but thankfully, it's not near as bad as last year (yet...).

No Snow But Plenty Of Snowdrops!

While we missed the big snowstorm this weekend, we don't feel too bad about it considering some recent precipitation. You can see above how snowdrops (Galanthus sp.) received their common name. It's amazing how those in the "hot spots" are done blooming while others are just hitting stride. We're seeing more blooms every day and know how quickly things will progress once we get that warm-up. We had an extremely productive day and our break this morning included about 20 people including a couple of Grumpies we haven't seen in awhile. Marv & Terry put up some obelisks and have been working on an enormous edging project in a new garden space. Marianne went around tidying different areas and continues to work on cleaning up, organizing and relabeling the iris collection. Janice and Mary worked together again in the color rooms and some other areas with basic debris clean-up. Larry has been securing benches and cut quite a bit of sod this morning to widen our vegetable beds. Jerry stopped by and his broken arm is healing well. Jenny was also in working on labels.
The Grumpies worked on sod removal, debris clean-up, carpentry and unpacking/assembling some of our new interpretive garden signs. It was a great day with plenty of activity. Of course I've been lulled by a manageable April many times over and then overwhelmed quickly by a crazy May. It's the nature of the business. Note the blooms to the left of the Lenten rose (Helleborus orientalis) that is emerging all over the gardens in a wide range of flower colors. Hellebores are wonderful, long-lived and durable perennials for the part shade garden. We probably have 40-50 out in the gardens and look forward to them maturing and continuing to be such a great spring contributor.. Speaking of spring "contributors", I took the image today (right) of Virginia bluebell (Mertensia virginica) emerging out in the gardens. We have it throughout the gardens and when it blooms in 2-3 weeks, it will be quite an eye-catcher (see below). Note the pink buds opening to blue blossoms. This plant later goes dormant by summer (leaves yellow by July) but does drop enough seed to become a nice colony. The flowers of this native perennial are most welcome in spring. The bottom picture of Virginia bluebells is in my backyard. Behind these plants is the golden bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis 'Goldheart') that I'll show in future posts as it also emerges quickly.