Smiles Abound

We had a great day at the gardens today. We avoided the freezing rain that crippled much of Dane County to our north and were able to accomplish more take down of the lights show. Larry (above) wanted to pass along a message to his grandson Hayden ("Bear") who is the youngest reader of this blog to my knowledge. I wanted to catch a picture of grandpa working for Hayden but that is increasingly more difficult. I cranked out another five seed orders and was fortunate to have Marianne here to inventory and process (see left) our orders that have recently arrived. We start sorting at this point but have many more incoming orders. She took some other seeds home to work on as well. The next step is writing ID labels in pencil on various colored tags that go out with the seeds and will allow us to sort our 3,000+ flats when they come back in May. We were happy to see Kay today and recruited her to help with the labeling in the near future. Janice was here working on our gourd collection and worked with a school group this afternoon on removing lights from what were formerly arches out in the lights show. See Neil (right) and cohorts becoming aware of just what they got themselves into today! We appreciate the help.

It was a successful Grumpy day as well with Marv, Terry, Little Jerry, Larry and Dick H. out bringing in lights. Bill came in later to do the same. Dave, Jim, Bob A. and Vern have moved away from flowers (sort of) and are now making the stems and leaves for these displays. Lots of sawdust flying, including from Del (below left) with his reindeer project. Dr. Gredler was sick today but we had Maury, Bob T., Rollie and John stop by as well.

As I wind down with seed orders, I start to go thru catalogs with perennial and woody plant offerings. I'm a big fan of hostas and like to acquire new ones for the gardens (and home!) each year. I thought I would include a small article that I recently wrote for the American Hosta Society (AHS) summer publication this year. As a National Display Garden for that organization, our hosta collection is very important and we hope to add 50-100 new varieties (new to RBG) this year. This article was originally meant to inform AHS members about RBG and our hosta collections. It may be of interest to you as well. We have many spaces that could accomodate hostas and look forward to our growing collection (pun intended). Nice shot of 'Orange Titan' iris (Iris germanica) at the very bottom from Laurie.

Rotary Botanical Gardens (Janesville, WI)
By Mark Dwyer, Director of Horticulture

Founded in 1989 by Dr. Robert Yahr, a retired orthodontist, Rotary Botanical Gardens (RBG) was initially developed with assistance from the two local Rotary Clubs in Janesville, WI. These 20 acres of display gardens are situated on City of Janesville land that originally was utilized as a sand and gravel pit over 100 years ago. The Wilcox Sand & Gravel Company made hitching posts and other items at their facility and the original office building for that company continues to be part of our expanded visitor’s center and housed the original offices for early garden staff. When mining operations hit natural springs, the pits filled with water and have become a six acre pond around which the gardens are arranged. While the land and original building was used for various operations over the past century, it eventually became the property of the city and was used for fishing, a BMX bike track and also has a storage space for various items.

This 20 acre piece of real estate is bounded to the west by Lion’s Beach, a swimming beach with beach house, which was a project of the Lion’s Club back in the 1950s and to the east by Kiwanis Pond, another reclamation project of a sand and gravel pit that was a project of that service organization. The gardens are located in “service club alley” which is a small portion of a large greenbelt that is part of Janesville’s 2,500 acres of park land. Janesville’s tag line is “Wisconsin’s Park Place”.

Dedicated to international peace and friendship, the gardens developed rapidly with very little direct funding. Dr. Yahr solicited financial and in-kind support from many organizations, businesses and individuals and the gardens began to develop without any City of Janesville funds. RBG is a private, 501(c)3 non-profit entity and receives no local, state or federal funding. The original and continuing mission of RBG is “To provide horticultural education and appreciation for everyone.” It is important to note that volunteers are the most valuable asset at RBG. With a very small permanent staff, volunteers continue to be instrumental in all aspects of garden activity, including education, special events, gardening, tours, etc.

There are over 20 different gardens within RBG’s 20 acres. The first garden built was the Japanese Garden which continues to be our most popular garden and is ranked one of the top 25 in North America. Other gardens include English Cottage Garden, French Formal Garden, Italian Formal Garden, Fern & Moss Garden, Sunken Garden, Reception Garden, and so on. These garden spaces are meant to reflect a certain garden style and/or contain specific plant collections relevant to that type of garden. RBG currently has over 1000 varieties of woody plants, 3,000 varieties of perennials, and features over 100,000 annuals each year representing 800+varieties. A substantial collection of over 400,000 spring blooming bulbs starts our spring and specialty displays and trials are common every year. Many displays are transitional and RBG puts on a “new face” each year with transitions of color and design modifications.

Aside from being a National Display Garden for the American Hosta Society (more about hostas later!), we are also a National Display Garden for the American Hemerocallis Society, the Hardy Fern Foundation, All-America Selections, the American Garden Award program and Fleuroselect (Europe). We also do plant trials for Ball Seed, PanAmerican Seed and Bailey Nursery (roses) as well. The gardens have been featured on HGTV (Great American Gardens), PBS (GardenSMART) and in many national gardening magazines. The American Horticultural Society (AHS) listed RBG as one of the best (and least known) botanic gardens in the Midwest. Our plant collections continue to grow as does our commitment to promoting sound environmental practices. Our educational programs, which include the local Rock County Master Gardener program, are geared towards all age levels and we continue to improve our interpretation and labeling initiatives. RBG also is involved with many community service organizations and is currently making modifications to allow for significant horticultural therapy programs. We are currently developing a small children’s garden that will facilitate many of our expanding programs.

Well, what about hostas? We love them here at RBG and currently have over 500 varieties. RBG, while still relatively young, is fortunate to have many areas of shade and part-shade due to existing large trees such as cottonwood (Populus deltoides) and hackberry (Celtis occidentalis). When the gardens were started, many hosta donations from the local populace poured in to the gardens and were used for filler in those shady areas. In past years, we focused on identifying those that we could, remove those that we couldn’t and putting in new collections. The Wisconsin Hosta Society (WHS) has been extremely generous with donations from members over the years and has provided significant financial support of those collections. The Midwest Regional Hosta Society, along with the WHS, supplied funds in 2004 to create our Hosta Hollow garden. This small garden space is adjacent to our Fern & Moss Garden and has an overhead canopy of cottonwoods (messy!) and an understory of rare woody plants. Aside from specialty perennials and thousands of spring bulbs, this garden displays over 80 varieties of hostas and includes the complete collection from Eunice Fisher, a native WI hybridizer. Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, WI contains the only other complete Eunice Fisher collection.

Our 20 acres also includes our Woodland Walk Garden, Gazebo Garden, Color Rooms Garden and Shade Garden. All of these gardens have significant hostas, artfully combined with other perennials such as hellebores (Helleborus sp.), lungworts (Pulmonaria), barrenworts (Epimedium), Rodger’s flower (Rodgersia) and other perennials of merit. Colorful, shade tolerant annuals also punctuate these shady spaces. Most hosta groupings have been under planted with thousands of grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum) that offer their early May color in the gaps between emerging plants that later fill those voids. Three years ago we divided many of our hostas and had over 3,000 divisions available for sale. Each year we try to add 50 varieties new to the gardens and will be focusing on smaller varieties and miniatures in the immediate future. We continue to rely on donations as our grounds budget is still quite meager. Shady Oaks Nursery and Klehm’s Song Sparrow Nursery have been major benefactors as well.

I don’t feel qualified to list what would be our most significant varieties as I think that is a subjective decision that has nothing to due with how new a cultivar is or how expensive. My favorite varieties here at the gardens include ‘Wolverine’, ‘White Christmas’, ‘Torchlight’, ‘Inniswood’, ‘Osprey’, ‘Choo Choo Train’, ‘Majesty’, ‘Remember Me’, ‘Stained Glass’ and ‘June’. One of my favorite garden moments each spring however is seeing ‘Fire Island’ piercing the soil and offering a beacon of color. We can all wax poetic about our favorites but I’m preaching to the choir when I say that hostas are awesome and will continue to be a mainstay at Rotary Botanical Gardens in the future. While we’ll never accumulate a truly massive collection because of our size, we’ll continue to display a wide range of named varieties in a rotating collection that will extol the virtues of this stalwart perennial. RBG is proud to be a National Display Garden for the American Hosta Society since 2004 and will continue to maintain our quality collection.

For more information regarding Rotary Botanical Gardens, visit our website at www.rotarygardens.org or feel free to visit my daily gardening blog for RBG at www.rotarygardens.blogspot.com. Please come and visit. That’s why we’re here!