Steady Traffic

The plant sale started today for Friends members and volunteers and we had fairly steady traffic throughout the day. We had plenty of volunteer help this morning to get everything organized for maximum efficiency. The forecast for the weekend looks better with almost no chance of rain now and we hope for a super turnout tomorrow. The first Saturday is typically our busiest day and we hope that trend will continue. The Garden Festival is also tomorrow (11am-4pm) and there should be a "crossover of crowds" that will go to both events. Our mum supply is currently holding (see below) but will be decimated tomorrow. Marianne and I were mentioning how we'll have to put in another 120 hours at this sale and sure hope we get the crowds we need to make this a successful fundraiser.

Life in the gardens doesn't stop for these plant sales so we were fortunate to have our Friday team out there as there will be plenty of visitors this weekend (we start a free admission week) and three weddings to boot! Little Jerry and Dr. Gredler took care of the riding mower work and Jerry had time to work in the Japanese garden as well. Janice helped prep for the Garden Festival but also put out labels, watered and pushmowed. Terry also mowed and worked on many tasks that included moving sprinklers around all day. Marv helped in the plant sale this morning getting things arranged and ran lots of irrigation and sprinklers around the gardens. I'm sure I'll miss some of the names but special thanks to our Friday volunteers of John, Becky, Gene, Elaine, Judy, Joanne, Mike, Joe, Jonas, Bonnie, Shirley, Ron, Lynda, Kristine (to the left cutting up pepper), Jumbo Jim, Bev, Julie, the RECAPPERS, Laurie and everyone else I forgot. This is such a great time of year in the gardens and despite all the prep work involved with our plant sale and the Garden Festival, it always ends up being worth it and we're glad to provide these events and activities for the community. At the bottom is just one of the beans ('Speckled Cranberry') that will be featured at the Garden Festival tomorrow. This variety also has neat seeds that are white with that same color pink as splotches. A true "ornamental edible"!

Plant Sale Is Poised...

With the help of many volunteers today (under the direction of Marianne), the plant sale is ready for tomorrow. Special thanks to our "taggers" today (Luis, Laura, Magda, Shirley, Gary, Cindy and Sally). We had some last minute deliveries of mums this afternoon but spent most of the day preparing for what we hope will be a "shopping onslaught". Being a Grumpy day, the guys helped with the sale but were also able to do some other tasks. Del and Ron set up the temporary parking lot while Ron W. and John swept up the lot and put up labels for our shrubs. Bob T. did a nice job air edging out in the gardens. Rollie and Ed tore up our diseases tomatoes (no small project) while Maury and Gary went out for more donated daylilies. The carpenters did their thing and helped with sale tasks as well. Suzy, Suzanne, Marilyn and Glenna all worked on the east of the garden, weeding and tidying up in an area that we traditionally don't get to (ever). They did such a nice job. Below are some of the dwarf asters ('Magic') that we typically offer at the sale. I will say I think we have the nicest assortment of plants that we've ever had but the key is getting in the crowds to appreciate (and patronize) the selection.
See Dr. Yahr (the founder of Rotary Botanical Gardens) in the bottom photo. He's been planting the wishing well garden and doing a darn nice job of it

Plant Sale Preparations On Track

The preparations for our 12th Annual Fall Plant Sale are going very smoothly as seen by Terry amongst our shrub offerings above. Marianne is the maestro of organization and along with help from Nancy, Barb, Shirley, Bonnie and Bev, we did quite a bit of pricing and tagging of the items for the sale. Everything at our sale is from a WI vendor and we're happy to have such a wide assortment out there. Terry and Marv ran out for daylily donations and helped water in the garden and ended up in the plant sale with us. Little Jerry worked in the alpine garden most of the day removing the dead and dying and he did a great job pruning some conifers that were becoming overgrown. Larry ran lots of irrigation and helped unload most of our major plant deliveries today. Bill and Vern ran for more wagons and Bill helped tidy in the gardens and watered 1500 mums for us this afternoon. Kay was here and after two hours of weeding, helped Dr. Yahr plant over 400 new perennials in our wishing well garden. Great teamwork with tangible results. Dr. Gredler has almost completed his new berm and is seeding much of the area in anticipation of some rain (which we hope misses the plant sale!). We still have a couple deliveries left tomorrow but are on track to get everything ready to go for our "pre-sale" on Friday for Friends Members and volunteers. See photos beneath the plant sale shot for the ornamental merit of the blooms of runner beans. See 'Scarlett Runner', 'Painted Lady' and the snail flower or corkscrew vine (Vigna caracalla) for the bottom two shots (questionable "edibility"). Cool!

No Time For A Post

Our larch wall plantings above with ornamental edibles has really filled in nicely this year but most of the trailing sweet potato vines (lime green over the wall) have been nibbled by woodchucks or other rodents recently. Crazy day with not much time to post. Great Grumpy group, lots of plant sale prep and the grounds staff did an amazing amount of work today (everyone was here). Great day overall with more plant sale preparations tomorrow. I'll post a better blog tomorrow (if time allows... :P). Nice shot of turtlehead (Chelone obliqua) below in our sunken garden.

Frantic Friday Preparations

Nice shot of one of our Easy Elegance shrub roses named 'Snowdrift' above. The rose collection is looking pretty good although more summer heat would have been preferable. It was a crazy day today and I almost forgot to put together the blog! We had deliveries of shrubs and mums today for the plant sale and had to do our normal "Friday routine." We coasted thru this week on the remnants of moisture from last weeks' deluge but had to water today. Marv, Marianne, Terry, Janice and Little Jerry all watered and/or ran irrigation out in the gardens today. We're beginning to segway in to more plant sale preparations and with Labor Day on Monday, we're looking at crunch time on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as more deliveries arrive and we begin to organize and tag plants. Marianne is our organized leader with this event and I'm sure things will go smoothly once everything is here. Should be a busy week. Kay was here to weed and tidy the reception garden and did an awesome job as usual. Jan worked in the Scottish garden and Dr. Gredler mowed and worked on reseeding some thin turf areas. The shot below really shows the benefits and nice appearance of the new fence. Very tasteful and it certainly doesn't detract from the adjacent plants ('Tiger Eyes' sumac, 'Wichita Blue' juniper and 'Tardiva' panicled hydrangea). Our volunteers do such nice work! More blogging next week but less time to type! UGH.

A Nice Field Trip and Nice Day Today

The grounds staff had a nice field trip day yesterday and enjoyed Allen Centennial Garden (above two shots) on the UW-Madison campus. Ed Lyon gave us a nice tour and it's nice to see that garden in very capable hands. They have a lot of plants spread over 2.5 acres and the containers and beds are very well designed. We then went to the West Madison Agricultural Research Center and were very impressed by what Judy is coordinating in terms of trials (see below).
The weather was perfect and our hosts were very cordial. We finished the day by going to Olbrich Botanical Garden and were given a nice introduction by Christian Harper, one of the Olbrich horticulturists. We enjoyed our walk thru that garden (as always) and I always leave impressed with the attention and quality evident throughout the gardens by their talented staff and volunteers. See some shots below. I like the composition at the bottom with cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) coming up amongst new shoots of golden honeylocust ('Sunburst' probably). The white in the center is a variegated maiden grass (Miscanthus sinensis) in the background.
The Grumpies helped with plant sale set up today, tidying the gardens and various other tasks. Larry and Bill spent the day running out for 1000+ dwarf New England asters for our fall plant sale. Rollie and Ron ran out to borrow wagons for the sale and most of the guys helped move tables around, smooth out the yard and get ready for this event. The carpenters had some work as well and a couple of guys also got out in the gardens to dig out "undesireables" and clean up the beginning of our autumn leaf mess. Janice got Suzy and Glenna going outside with some weeding and then shifted to her own projects, including working with some teenage volunteers this afternoon. Dr. Gredler mowed and worked on his new berm while Little Jerry kept busy running irrigation and tidying various areas including the Japanese garden. We had a new Grumpy, Doug, come in today and we're happy to have him as part of the team. Maury ran lots of errands and overall, it was a very productive day and perfect weather (nice to see it heat up a bit to 77 degrees F!). Below is Rose continuing to re-letter our 52 quote benches and at the very bottom is Don and Pearl's area, still looking great with those rich oranges!

The "Perfect Weather" Day?

75 degrees F on a bright sunny day is my idea of perfect weather. Of course I'd like a warmer September and we may just get that. However, the gardens, while chilly this morning, are delightful today. Some of our tours today commented on the weather and of course loved the pink/chartreuse theme (seen above in the terrace garden). Despite removing about 10% of our annuals that are failing, the gardens still has great color (see below) and we had a nice Tuesday turnout of volunteers.
Little Jerry was here to work in the Japanese garden and mow with Dr. Gredler. Larry has been working on weedwhipping and pushmowing while Janice has been weeding and pushmowing as well. Kay and Barb did a great job weeding in the upper woodland walk area while our newest volunteers, Patty and Sally tidied up in the sunken garden. We're happy to have them on board and look forward to their involvement at the gardens. Vern was here working on woodworking while Maury came by with some supplies. Mary D. helped Janice weed the rose garden and the GardenFest team of Laurie, Bev and Deb made some nice gift baskets (see to the left) for their event sponsors. Also below is a shot of some our pepper collection that Janice collected this morning. Lots of work looming in preparation for our plant sale. Tomorrow, the grounds staff and I will be going to Madison to visit other gardens and their staff. We'll stop at Allen Centennial Garden on the UW-Madison campus that is run by our former director here (Ed Lyon) and will then go to the West Madison Agricultural Research Center and finally to Olbrich Botanical Gardens. Aside from getting "out of Dodge" for the day, these trips allow us to exchange ideas and see what else is going on out there. I may not have a blog until Thursday.