A Balmy Weekend Looms

Did anyone forget about our neat iris display that will be peaking in around 86 days? Above is 'Cheerful Doll', a miniature dwarf bearded (Iris germanica) shot by Tim last spring. The "buzz" is out there and the latest American Iris Society journal published an article about RBG and our role in presenting this collection for the conference in Madison this spring. Major kudos to John B., who is coordinating this entire event with the help of some very dedicated members of the Madison Iris Society. We'll have 400 conference attendees enjoying these irises (and the gardens in general) on June 4th and 5th. We hope the public will come enjoy the display as well (and the iris sale on August 28).

I'm writing this blog early as I will be leaving for Amherst, WI (east of Stevens Point) this afternoon to get ready for my presentation tomorrow morning. Dr. Gredler has been in today and he is converting some of our last obelisks (deep marine blue to butternut squash orange) with fresh paint. Vern popped in as well. I've ordered plastic labels for our incoming laser engraver and a large batch of ferns from Foliage Gardens (http://www.foliagegardens.com/) run by Sue Olsen, a great fern expert and advocate. She had a book published in 2008 called the Encyclopedia of Ferns which is a wonderful reference book with plenty of pictures. We're hoping to replenish our fern garden as the fern collection has dwindled due to flooding issues and a lapse in proper evaluations for replacements (my fault, ugh). Looking forward to re-establishing the "integrity" of this collection in 2010. Our deer problems persist but the herd problem to the left is a lot easier to solve! :) These are Del's reindeer that have been brought in from the lights show. Warmer weather has allowed us to continue taking down this event in advance of our earliest bulbs starting to peak out. I would rather have freezing temperatures this early in March as so many plants will start to get curious, thinking it's April.

The Rock Prairie Master Gardeners hosted a small volunteer fair last night that was very well organized by Mike and hopefully will get their membership involved with various community gardens, groups and of course, RBG activities. Dr. Luis did his talk on Mushrooms although unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend. Something very interesting occured repeatedly at our booth at the Garden Expo in Madison a couple weeks ago. We had set-up a potting bench with some tools simply for display. However, the tools were of monumental interest to many Expo attendees as they continually picked them up and tried them out. We even set out some soil in a container so they could do a "practice run". These tools were all ergonomically designed for the intent of minimizing wrist stress, fatigue (blisters!) and were of broad appeal to a wide range of those that tried them. We could have sold hundreds of these! We have them at the gardens for those volunteers that prefer to use them and they were purchased thru a grant last year that was meant to help accomodate volunteers of all abilities. Regardless, there are some pictures below of the Radius Garden hand tools (green handles) that are easier on the wrist. Check out http://www.radiusgarden.com/ to see some options but look for these at your local garden center or online source. The other set of tools are called Easi-Grip tools and were also quite popular. There are many online sources for Easi-Grip tools as well but see if you can get them locally first. You can see the obvious merits of using these tools for those that have difficulty with standard gardening tools (which were designed for function, not necessarily user comfort!).