Lasers And Butterflies

Above is the second of our thirty-four butterfly art projects to return to the gardens. This one is absolutely beautiful and shows the back and front of the same butterfly respectively. When I left work today, there were two more that had been returned. It will be exciting to have these out in the gardens (displayed by Mother's Day) and if the artistic quality of the first four butterflies is any indication, we'll have a top notch showing out in the gardens. The daisy project last year really started a nice event that while we may not do something like this every year, we're seeing interest in such an event by both artists and visitors to the gardens.

Today I had some meetings but bounced between ordering supplies (potting soil, etc.) and finalizing some projects. I think this will be our busiest spring yet so the importance of proactive preparations is not lost on me! Larry worked on bringing in some of our last holiday displays, pruning and hauled a good portion of a large white pine (Pinus strobus) that we had dropped and diced up. Urban was out with Dick W. cutting grasses and thinning some roses. Marv and Terry worked on some different projects including digging up a small Canadian hemlock (Tsuga canadensis 'Gentsch White') for later transplanting. Rose, Dr. Gredler and Pat worked on either staining, priming and/or painting some cucumber supports that we'll use out in the gardens. Dave, Jim, Bob A. and Vern all kept busy with carpentry work (benches, etc.) and Marianne went out to tidy up the entrance garden after stuffing some envelopes for me. Ron helped out in the gardens and Bill was in later to do that as well. Both Ron and Big John started taking down the deer fencing too and although it would be nice to leave it up a bit longer, so many things will be sprouting soon that it makes sense to avoid damaging emerging plants by a timely fence removal now. Little Jerry was in all day sharpening tools and did some path tidying as well. Maury was around to help as well and we also saw Dick H., Mary W., Janice (plant sale work), Art, Kelli, Bonnie and Gary was also working his kung fu on modifying our laser engraver templates and really setting up a nice, uniform setting. Below is Gary's progression from computer templates to the engraver to the final product.