Looming Showers

Nice shot of some our tulips above. Who says bright pink and yellow don't go well together!? It's sometimes about shock value too. Overcast today with very light showers periodically. As of lunch time, there was no reason to run for cover but maybe we'll have more rain later. We could use another inch to soak things down again but on the "flip side", we'd like to avoid any more flooding in garden areas with current high water. We've started plant runs out to another supplier today (Jenka Blossoms in Lima Center, WI) and picked up our 24 hanging baskets and a couple thousand tropicals in 4" pots. These are all selected the previous summer and grown to a nice size for spring planting. Larry and I did the first run with Marv and Terry doing the other two. Marianne has been tidying, weeding, watering and is "re-figuring" out our special labels system for alpine plant labels. We're really doing well with replacing signs with Jenny making hundreds yesterday and Marianne becoming involved with the alpines. Larry and Dick P. are working with Joel from Reinders to install a refurbished fountain in the sunken garden and troubleshoot some other water feature "issues". Plenty more blooming today. Note Jacob's ladder (Polemonium caeruleum) in the gazebo garden and the gorgeous blooms of 'Yellow Lantern' magnolia (Magnolia hybrida) to the right. I've been really inspired by the magnolias this spring.

Tonite we'll have a volunteer work evening and will be dividing daylilies again. This will be a smaller crowd and includes many volunteers that couldn't make it this past Saturday. Janice will come in and help me get organized and we'll probably end up with another 300-400 divisions. All the vegetables will be rolling in next week as will some miscellaneous herbs. Sara brought in our new garden signs which will be installed soon as well. These are fancy, descriptive garden area signs that have full color pictures, text and other information. Nice shot below of the flowers of a quince (Chaenomeles sp.) blooming in the gardens. This is the contorted version although you might be noticing some quince around town with extremely bright red or orange blooms. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaenomeles for more information about this rose family relative (native to Japan, China and Korrea). I don't notice quince unless it's blooming but when it does, enjoy it!