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!