Prelude To A Beautiful Day

I couldn't pass up taking a shot of the sunrise this morning (shot taken from the Horticulture Center). What wonderful colors and the day progressed nicely to be partly sunny with a slight breeze. The temperatures have cooled a bit but still great weather to accomplish some work. Janice was sick today and we hope Kay is still recovering from last week. Little Jerry worked on pruning in the Scottish garden and color rooms garden while Bill continued to collect debris from some of those tough to reach locations. Larry and I turned on the lights show and started addressing issues (mostly things that weren't plugged in yet!) and we should have everything done by the end of the week. I'm still carrying around my camera to catch garden interest shots and noticed the barrenwort (Epimedium x rubrum) below with reddish leaves, not too different in coloration from the fresh spring leaves that also have a hint of pink/red. No need to cut these down until spring and they do add interest in the November garden.

Dr. Gredler was here to make more dump runs and continued to mow some areas with stray leaves. The riding mower will soon be converted to a snowblower as we need to be poised to keep our paths clear for the lights show. I'd rather have a foot of snow to deal with than drizzle. We'll see what December holds for us soon enough. Scott S. (aka "Mr. Christmas") came in to help decorate today. This guy is in to Christmas hard core. I believe he has a room in his house with lights and decorations year round (not kidding) and the horn on his truck beeps Christmas tunes. Interesting. He'll be here Thursday as well and is a great guy and a great decorator. See below for the 'Toffee Twist' sedge (Carex flagellifera) which while not hardy, looks great until repeated heavy frosts. This grass relative is used all over the gardens and normally, we remove it in October. We decided to leave these up as they still have interest (that is its normal color). The bottom photo is one of our quote benches and the saying is just as pertinent and appropriate as it was 20 years ago! Our founder, Dr. Robert Yahr continues to be our primary advocate for continued support of this resource.