
Monday, March 31, 2008
No Surprise - A Soggy Start

Sunday, March 30, 2008
April Showers Bring May Flowers (& Flooding)
We had a great spring symposium on Saturday. This is the fifth one that Mike Maddox (UW Hort Educator / Rotary Gardens) organized and it went very well. Enjoyed all the speakers and the event seemed very well received by the 125+ participants. It was nice to do a talk on shrubs and I hope to expand that presentation in the future and we find more shrubs that perform well for us. Bagged compost sale starting next Saturday (April 5) with a plant sale looming (May 17).
We're going to be developing a neat collection of Echinacea (coneflower) over the next two years. Purple coneflowers have many varieties and there are now many crosses and hybrids with exciting blooms and/or foliage. We feel some may be over-rated but regardless, we hope this collection of 100+ varieties will be of value for our assessments and for the visitor.
Friday, March 28, 2008
The Last Snow? Beautiful though...
We're in the process of creating planting beds for an iris collection that will be arriving this summer. The American Iris Society will be having their national meeting in Madison in 2010. That June, we will have over 600 attendees of this conference come and see the extensive iris collection that we will receive this summer. There are other sites as well. The irises, many new and/or not available in "the trade" are sent to us from hybridizers and growers around the country. These 500 varieties will require two years to establish and we're excited about being involved in this opportunity. It's also nice to have avid plantspeople visit the gardens and see what we're all about. 
Thursday, March 27, 2008
"Walking in Winter Wonderland (in March)!"

Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Not Too Early to Get Out in the Garden!
The pond level at the gardens (old sand and gravel pit) is at a record high right now. Our lowest paths in the Japanese and alpine gardens are flooded and our shoreline retaining walls are collapsing as the rising water undermines the supporting gravel. We're very worried about "A
pril showers" as 4" of rain will equate to serious flooding as the gardens and surrounding slopes drain in to this pond. Ultimately, aside from evaporation, this spring-fed pond drains off to a local creek and eventually the Rock River. High river levels have left our pond with no where to drain. This will be a significant problem very shortly.
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Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Ahhhh...Another Sign!
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Great time of year to cut back ornamental grasses, trim back old perennial growth, prune and otherwise prep for the impending spring.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Is Spring Really Here?

It's hard to believe that we're only a couple months from a nice sunny, hot summer and a view like this (formal gardens). After our record snows and pronounced winter doldrums, we are all ready for real spring that should come all too soon. The indications of spring were here before the actual date arrived. However, late snows might have confused some but not those of us that see the daily signs of the garden awakening.
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