Cool Stuff Coming Up Soon!

The crocus (Crocus sp.) to the left will have to worry about pounding rains and ultimately an untimely demise from area rodents. I think many bulbs are just as beautiful before they open up just like this. It feels like a cold, wet, October day today but there is no lack of work occuring today. Dr. Gredler has been alternating between painting and running loads of debris to the dump. He started aerating our lawns yesterday (albeit very early) and is chomping at the bit to get outside. Pat M. was in to paint as well. Bill went out in the gardens and cut back some more perennials and focused on collecting garbage that had accumulated along the curbline and parking lot. Larry spent the day working on our push mowers so they are ready to roll out this spring. Gary and Jenny were here to work on the new label maker and we also saw Maury, Charlie E., Kris and some others. I worked on my presentation for this upcoming symposium (running a bit late) and continue to promote our upcoming events while finalizing details for our busy symposium weekend. We also had a good meeting with Kelli, Maury, Hal, Gary and me.


The shot to the right is of the golden variegated sage (Salvia officinalis 'Aurea') which is a perennial for us although grown frequently as an annual. This is the sage that is used for a spice although this variety has a bit more interest in leaf coloration (regular garden sage is silver/green leaved). Why am I showing this? Well, because Patty Bailey from Patty's Plants Natural & Organic Garden Supply (Milton, WI) will be talking about Herb Gardening next Wednesday evening, March 30th from 6 pm until 8 pm at the RBG Parker Education Center. This promises to be a fun lecture and the fee is $5 for the public and free for all RBG members. On April 7th, Janice Peterson will present Heirlooms, Hybrids & History from 7 pm until 8 pm at the RBG Parker Education Center. Janice is a RBG grounds staff member as well as a member of the Rock Prairie Master Gardener Association (which hosts her lecture and five others). This talk is free for RPMGA and RBG members and $5 for everyone else. I'm sure tomatoes [see 'Jolly' below (picture from All-America Selections)] will be part of the discussion. Very soon, we are also selling bagged mushroom compost (see bottom picture) for $5.50 per bag (plus tax) with each bag measured at 1.5 cubic feet or 45 lbs. RBG Friends members get 10% off. The compost sale starts Saturday, April 2nd (8 am -noon) and is held at the Horticulture Center. The sale will continue every Saturday thru April and May.

Going To Get Damp

The Danford irises (Iris danfordiae) are just starting to bloom in time for another battering from incoming rains. Portions of this past weekend were quite damp and it sounds like we'll have more of the same this week. This upcoming weekend is our big spring symposium (March 26th) and we are looking forward to a full crowd (180 attendees). I met with Big John and Polly today regarding set-up and took care of some other arrangements. We still have people calling to see if they can get in for this Saturday! Our Friday night "Meet & Greet" still has some openings (call me for more details) and it will be nice to relax with the speakers (Doreen, Ed and Jeff) prior to the chaos. Doreen is also doing a presentation on "Heirloom Vegetables" that evening. Janice, Marianne, Kay and our new Education Coordinator, Kris worked on preparing our symposium attendee bags this morning (see below). Kris' son Roman was a great help too and it's nice that we're so organized thus far (thanks to Janice, Marianne and Polly!).Today was our first official "Grumpy Day" and I put up our first list of the year. Unfortunately it was a bit damp to do some of the projects (i.e. composting beds). Dick W. went out to cut back some shrub willows while Terry and Marv transplanted spirea, barberries and did a nice job organizing the yard for some incoming semi-loads of shredded bark (coming Wednesday). Larry took in more stakes and helped the guys organize the yard. Dr. Gredler worked on painting the last of the cucumber supports as did Pat. Dr. G also ran to the dump a couple of times to keep up with our accumulation of garden debris. Ron W. and Dick H. started assembling our plant sale tables that will go in to use for the big tree sale in April prior to their use in May. Gary continued his work on labels and we also saw Kelli, Chuck, Polly, Maury and many others. Our Horticulture Therapy committee also met this afternoon.

Directly below are some new offerings for our spring compost sale. We'll be selling these half gallons of worm tea concentrate ($4 bottle) that can be used out in the garden. We'll be using some of this product here for fertilizing containers, houseplants and select plantings. This worm tea will also be offered with worm castings at the spring plant sale. Many swear by the use of compost teas in the landscape although the research conclusions regarding its effectiveness are at times, quite conflicting. I've heard enough positives about the appropriate use of such teas and am interested to see how popular it will be as a sale item. Butterfly #6 can be seen at the bottom of the posting. Speaking in Pardeeville, WI tonight ("Focus on Foliage") and at Olbrich tomorrow evening ("Groundcovers"). Busy week.

Irish Seven Course Meal

Our St. Patrick's Day celebration at home includes blaring bagpipe music (not me playing...) and other Irish tunes (much to the chagrin of my wife). Originally from the O'Dwyer clan, I feel obligated to celebrate the day and while I didn't have the traditional Irish seven course meal (a six pack and a potato), I did have plenty of spuds and some green beer (that's Tika, are tiny, three-legged ninja cat in the background). My younger daughter loves potatoes and consumes more than a offensive lineman. We had lots of fun last night and talked about the fact that potatoes are high in fiber, vitamin C, iron and also have calcium, vitamin A and other good stuff. The United States is ranked fourth internationally in terms of potato production with annual outputs of 20 million tons! Wow. Off soon to head to the Appleton area. Busy week next week with the Grumpies back in full swing and preparations for our Spring Symposium being a priority.

Soup and Seeds

Last night we had our third installment of our popular, volunteer soup events and were happy to have a turnout of about 75 people. The four varieties of soup were enjoyed and kudos to Polly and Lori for their pre-setup before going home sick. Thanks to Janice, Polly, Virginia and Celise for making the delicious soup selections too! Janice, Virginia, Judy and Dave B. helped get the event up and ready before the 5 pm start. About 50% of the crowd had been to all three of these events and it was equally exciting to see some new faces and rookie volunteers that started last year. Kelli was introduced and made some nice comments and gave some background about herself. I did a short presentation on what's happening in 2011 in regards to events, garden modifications, collections and volunteer opportunities. After eating, the group had to endure me talking about my travels to some gardens in New York City this past October (2010). These three events had a combined attendance of 230 and are something we'll consider next winter to keep in touch with our volunteers and work up some momentum prior to the "spring crunch."

Today I worked on upcoming presentations, orders and spent some time with Kris Koch, our new Education Coordinator. She'll fall in to a regular schedule next week and we're looking forward to her involvement and input here at RBG. We also had a meeting regarding our spring tree sale (April 22 and 23, 8 am - 2 pm). We're working with the Blackhawk Golden Kiwanis club that has normally facilitated this sale. We've combined our efforts this year and will have over 10,000 tree transplants of four different evergreen varieties available (see information on this sale and the tree varieties at www.rotarybotanicalgardens.org). We did have plenty of action out in the gardens today and our pile of woody plant debris (seen to the left) continues to grow. Terry and Marv were out installing and leveling benches while some others were out continuing to take down and haul back our deer fencing, stakes, burlap, etc. This is a tough task but the timing is perfect. Other Grumpies continued to tidy up paths, cut grasses and otherwise get the gardens ready for spring visitation. The image to the right is the dead (but still ornamental) foliage of the golden Hakone grass (Hakonechloa macra 'All Gold') that we've established in these "boulder pockets" down near the arched bridge in the fern & moss garden. Outdoor Grumpies included Ron, Dick W., Dick H. and Del. The carpenter quartet (Bob, Dave, Vern and Jim) continued to work on the benches and Marianne was in to work on some labels then tidy out in the gardens. Gary was in producing more labels and Janice came in to work with her volunteer group on counting and bagging seeds for the spring plant sale (see bottom photo). We also saw Maury, Kelli, Mary W., John & Becky N., Bill O. and Kris. Lots going on today but we beat the rains and are one step closer to a smooth spring start out in the gardens. I'm off tomorrow afternoon to head to Kimberly, WI for a talk I'm doing early Saturday morning. I present on "Ornamental Edibles" for the Garden Expectations conference that is presented by the Outagamie County Master Gardener Association and UWEX. Should be fun. Then our RBG conference (totally full) is the following weekend. I would sure enjoy a green beer right about now.....! The tulips (Tulipa) directly below scare me with their quick growth but what can you do?

Gardens Cleaning Up Nicely

Larry and I did a nice, thorough tour of the gardens this morning and it wasn't hard to snap a few pictures! Above is the winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) starting to bloom in the hosta garden and gazebo garden. They haven't quite opened up yet but that should happen this week and these will add some nice color by the thousands over the next three weeks. Snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis and other species) aren't hard to find in bloom either. The ones to the left were along our woodland walk trail. Larry and I were looking at some additional tree removals, late winter pruning and talking about some of our priorities out in the garden. We also sized up the Japanese garden waterfall area as work on that garden feature will begin very shortly. I did about 50 small projects today but am not complaining as it keeps things from getting too monotonous. I'm trying to keep up with those that are waiting for things from me while getting my own objectives/projects done too. I'm almost done with plant ordering (months late..).

Larry was out in the gardens today and worked on quite a few different projects including yanking some of our last posts that were remnants from the Holiday Lights Show. With potential visitors during this "warm spell", we want to keep the gardens tidy. Nice shot to the left of the bark on the paperbark maple (Acer griseum) in the shade garden. Marianne came in to work on some mailings for our Home Garden Tour and then headed out in to the gardens to work her "tidy up magic." She hasn't lost her touch and does a superb job. Bill was in cleaning up beds as well and this little window of opportunity (before spring rains) has been very advantageous and Bill has accomplished traditional April work early. Dick W. was out in the gardens cutting down more ornamental grasses which is perfect timing before many of the "cool season" grasses emerge in the coming weeks. Urban was out cutting back and pruning roses in the formal gardens. Dr. Gredler and Pat continued painting their cucumber supports and have gone from blue to lime to yellow paint thus far. I think lavender is still left... Needless to say, a lot of the color out in the gardens will be offered by "non-living" garden elements that have been painted some very vivid colors. Too much color!? Hardly!


Gary continued printing out the fern labels that Jenny entered in to our templates. Gary has really done a nice job making this entire process smooth and easy to follow. He'll share his recent knowledge with Jenny (and me) when she returns and we may add another helper or two in to the mix. The only drawback to this entire process is the noise of the engraver, compressor and venting system running as the labels are produced. Gary wisely had ear protection on and I'm thinking about doing the same. The decibel level is between a table saw and a push mower although some might think we're at motorcycle level (maybe not a Harley)....We also saw Jumbo Jim, Deb G., Barb C., Mary D., Mary W. and Bev F. over here for our Earth Day planning committee meeting. We should have a great event and details will be finalized very shortly. We also saw Dick H. and some others today. Our first five butterflies are in and they all look fabulous. Tomorrow, these will go off to be sealed and this program is going to be really neat. Imagine these 34 unique works of art around the gardens. Very cool. Our first semi-load of compost (40 cubic yards) was here waiting for us this morning...

The Progression Of Color Continues

It seemed like April 15th today instead of March 15th and the warm weather will continue throughout the rest of the week. Last year was very similar and I don't get too stressed out about early blooms like the yellow snow crocus (Crocus chrysanthus) opening up today. Many of these early bulbs are pretty tough and will take a return to cooler temperatures. I do get concerned when I see the tulips and alliums sprouting and stretching as they seem to think Mother's Day is around the corner. While frost tolerant, this early foliage gets more tender as it unfurls and gains height. Hopefully the flower buds will stay low and duck for cover as needed. Oh well. Regardless, it's nice to have the warm up and we actually saw some visitors roaming the gardens today which is quite rare at least until April. I worked on myriad projects and continue to order plants for this spring in between preparing for various programs like our big spring symposium. Our deadline for registering for the symposium was yesterday and we're happy to report we're full and can't squeeze in any more (much to the chagrin of the three ladies that called today trying to register).

Kris, our new Education Coordinator, started today and will immediately be involved with all our "educational happenings" that are occuring in short order here this spring. Kris has past experience in education at a public garden in RI as well as experience with UW-Extension and the Janesville school system. We welcome here aboard and look forward to her contributions regarding the facilitation of existing programs and expansion in to new opportunities and venues. Kelli, our new Executive Director, took the entire staff out including Gary, our immediate, past, interim Executive Director. Only Larry and Jenny couldn't make it but it was a rare time for everyone to see each other and of course, welcome Kris to the staff.

Dick W. was here to continue cutting grasses out in the gardens and Larry and Bill were out to remove woody plants that are in the way of our imminent waterfall deconstruction and subsequent reconstruction. Urban was here to do some work as well and we had our trio (Rose, Dr. Gredler and Pat) of painters working on painting cucumber supports that will be located in our ornamental edible / compact vegetable collection. Pat can be seen above and to the left and Dr. Gredler below. With the warm weather, we'll all be outside to get some early clean-up accomplished before April showers make a mud pit out there (before bringing May flowers). We may even get some compost in early. Gary was here cranking out more labels and we also saw Vern, Big John, Maury, Mary W. and some others over at the Horticulture Center.

Lasers And Butterflies

Above is the second of our thirty-four butterfly art projects to return to the gardens. This one is absolutely beautiful and shows the back and front of the same butterfly respectively. When I left work today, there were two more that had been returned. It will be exciting to have these out in the gardens (displayed by Mother's Day) and if the artistic quality of the first four butterflies is any indication, we'll have a top notch showing out in the gardens. The daisy project last year really started a nice event that while we may not do something like this every year, we're seeing interest in such an event by both artists and visitors to the gardens.

Today I had some meetings but bounced between ordering supplies (potting soil, etc.) and finalizing some projects. I think this will be our busiest spring yet so the importance of proactive preparations is not lost on me! Larry worked on bringing in some of our last holiday displays, pruning and hauled a good portion of a large white pine (Pinus strobus) that we had dropped and diced up. Urban was out with Dick W. cutting grasses and thinning some roses. Marv and Terry worked on some different projects including digging up a small Canadian hemlock (Tsuga canadensis 'Gentsch White') for later transplanting. Rose, Dr. Gredler and Pat worked on either staining, priming and/or painting some cucumber supports that we'll use out in the gardens. Dave, Jim, Bob A. and Vern all kept busy with carpentry work (benches, etc.) and Marianne went out to tidy up the entrance garden after stuffing some envelopes for me. Ron helped out in the gardens and Bill was in later to do that as well. Both Ron and Big John started taking down the deer fencing too and although it would be nice to leave it up a bit longer, so many things will be sprouting soon that it makes sense to avoid damaging emerging plants by a timely fence removal now. Little Jerry was in all day sharpening tools and did some path tidying as well. Maury was around to help as well and we also saw Dick H., Mary W., Janice (plant sale work), Art, Kelli, Bonnie and Gary was also working his kung fu on modifying our laser engraver templates and really setting up a nice, uniform setting. Below is Gary's progression from computer templates to the engraver to the final product.