Damp Earth Day

Today was cool and damp with precipitation ranging from a light drizzle to a steady downpour. Above is a shot of the start of the tree sale that had steady traffic all day. I believe we have sold about 1/3 of the trees and have plenty more for tomorrow's customers. Despite the weather, our enthusiasm for both our Earth Day activities at the Parker Education Center and our tree sale was still there. Unfortunately, I'm sure the bad weather affected attendance at both events. I'm glad that both opportunities continue tomorrow (tree sale from 8 am - 2 pm and Earth Day activities from 9 am until 3 pm) and the weather looks a bit more favorable. Below are the early cones of one of our larch (Larix sp.) trees out in the gardens. Those sure are pretty and note the bundled needles emerging from those short spurs. Larches are deciduous conifers and while in the pine family, they lose their needles in fall after they turn yellow to yellow/orange. Marv and Terry braved the weather and installed another 20 or so of the butterfly art projects around the gardens. I flagged some suggested locations and the guys did a nice job of installation. We had to consider proper support for some of the heavier ones and because many of these have equally nice "back sides", we're trying to position them for maximum visibility. I think the guys will have another seven or so to go next week. Big John was here for a couple of hours and finished his excavation project which involved creating a new planting bed behind one of benches that has one of the best views across the water. Marianne ran the tree sale with prowess and efficiency and had time to do her cutting display as well. Janice helped orchestrate the Earth Day set-up and worked on processing our new gardening books for the reference library. Marianne had some of our surplus tree sale volunteers working on smaller, indoor projects and we had many Golden K members and RBG volunteers assisting at the Horticulture Center. The only intent of the three pictures below is to show you how nice yesterday was in the gardens....Hopefully we'll see a quick return to similar weather!Earth Day set-up began this morning just before 8 am. The Youth Education Committee did a nice job setting up all their activities and the majority of the organizations that were going to be featured at booths did show up despite the weather. We have plenty of free trees left for the kids and Mary set that up nicely. Take a look at some of the neat displays below. Janice, Mary W., Deb and Jumbo Jim really kept things moving along smoothly and we did have steady attendance in the Parker Education Center. If the weather had been more kind, many of these activities would have occurred outside. However, we set up everything inside and while it was a bit tight, we were able to accomodate everyone. Tomorrow should see more attendance with warmer weather and the weekend. We have a free lecture series occuring throughout the day ("Exploring the World's Green Energy Innovations"(9am), "Rain Barrels" (10am), "The Importance of Trees" (11 am), "Composting Basics" (noon), "Gardening Questions & Answers"(1 pm) and "Energy Efficient Landscape Design" (2 pm). Lots of fun and our free garden tours should have more interest once the sun peaks out.

Many years ago, we had Earth Day activities and we had hundreds of children and families involved. It's nice to reinstate this event and Kris K. (RBG Education Coordinator) and I hope to make this an annual event and of course RBG is a logical venue to support this endeavor (and Arbor Day for that matter). A big thanks to all the organizations that are participating and providing volunteers and thanks to our volunteers and RPMGA (Rock Prairie Master Gardener Association) members for all the assistance. I'll have plenty more pictures of tomorrow's activities.