The HLS Continues...

Last night (Monday) we had 458 attendees at the Holiday Lights Show (HLS) and it was a nice steady crowd throughout the evening. That is a good showing for a school night and we did see quite a few kids. Of course the train set-up (see above and further below) is always a huge attraction. The Wisconsin Garden Railway Society does a great job each year and various members will bring different trains each night. While the lights are an attraction, I've seen parents trying to drag their kids away from the trains to go out in to the HLS and usually are successful if they promise a return to the trains. We've seen kids entranced for hours in front of those trains. We had more great volunteer help last night but of course my pictures don't capture all the volunteers that work as greeters, ticket sales, gift shop help, quilt raffle helpers, trail walkers and refreshment volunteers. To the left are Bev and Ron who worked the ticket sales booth and are veterans at this task (and many others). To the right are Bob C. (left) and Maury (right) with their European shoulder bags (not man purses) with supplies for trail walking. Note that Bob has a kneeling pad around his neck which was prompted after his first night of kneeling on gravel at the HLS to replace 50+ luminary bulbs! With a chance of freezing rain tonight, we'll see how the show goes in terms of keeping things lit and attendance numbers. We're happy to see that we have almost reached our total attendance for the HLS from last year with 10 nights left to go!Tina stopped in today to share some photos she took at the HLS as well as some other neat shots of RBG. Tina photographed our marigold (Tagetes) collection this year among other things and has done a nice job in the past with many photos out in the gardens. She was one of our volunteer photographers of the iris collection years ago and we appreciate her continued commitment to being a RBG shutterbug. I'll share some more of her RBG pictures in upcoming blogs. Larry and Bill worked out in the gardens pruning most of the day although we also saw Pat M., Maury, Dr. Gredler, Big John, Bill and some others at the Horticulture Center as well.

I'll be "off" until January 3rd after tomorrow but will return for three more nights of the HLS next week. There wont be any easing in to January as there is a tight time line for me to get out seed orders, prepare presentations and get everything ready for spring. I like to be proactive but it becomes more difficult each year with more challenges. Gary and I have moved forward with starting on our woody plant labels and we already have three garden areas completed. Our realistic goal is to have all those labels (for the entire gardens) to go out before Mother's Day. We're considering some options for label bases to secure them in the ground and will look at some other signage opportunities for our laser engraver. To the right is a colorful shot of one of our weeping willows (Salix alba 'Tristis') that was taken at sunset a couple days ago. That house in the upper right of the image gets a good look at the HLS! The images below of the gazebo and HLS deer/sleigh combo were also taken recently. At the bottom is some of the pruning handiwork accomplished by Urban and Pat yesterday. This is our only example of espalier in the gardens. This apple (Malus) was here before I started and Urban has worked on this for many years. This specimen is now close to 25' tall. The guys pruned it back nicely and also modified the wall anchors as needed.