Feels Like April In Many Ways Today!

Today reminded me of the activity at the gardens that we normally observe as we head in to April! Not only was there lots going with a multitude of volunteers, but with temperatures in the mid 40 degrees F, it was a great day to be outside. Tomorrow will be close to 50 degrees F! The top picture shows some of the fruits on the 'Winter King' green hawthorn (Crataegus viridis 'Winter King') near Palmer Drive which has these showy fruits from late September thru much of the winter until the birds clear them off. We had lots of volunteers come in to help with the continued takedown of the Holiday Lights Show (HLS) today. Above are Gena (left) and Myrt (right) working on coiling and storing just a fraction of our 6 miles of extension cords. Dr. Gredler was inside as well removing more lights from obelisks and Bill O. started working on the larger orange and green cords seen to the right in the image above. We were short two carpenters (Vern and Bob A.) but Dave and Jim (left) were here to start the installation of some custom-made shelving in the Horticulture Center office. These shelves will house our expanding reference libary and the guys have again shown their talents. To the right is some frost on donkeytail spurge (Euphorbia myrsinites) which is such a nice architectural plant, particularly along pathways and low walls where it can cascade. This plant can reseed rampantly in warmer climates though. I took all of these photos today on my nice (and rare!) winter jaunt around the gardens. I found plenty of interesting things to look at but am still hoping for some nice blanketing snow in the near future. We had a weird power outage today which affected some activities at both our buildings and thwarted Gary's efforts to continue producing more tree/shrub labels. Gary can be seen directly below. To the right is Dick P. collecting icicle lights this morning in the warm sunshine. Other helpers included Marv, Terry, Dennis, Ron, Dick H., Dick W., Larry and we had Pat in the afternoon. Pat & Dr. Gredler worked on cord coiling all afternoon. We also saw Mary W., Kelli, Maury, Vern (briefly), Kris, Janice and others over at the Horticulture Center today. Further below is one of our Japanese garden yews (Taxus sp.) enjoying the sunlight and deer protection (bird netting). We haven't seen much deer damage (yet) as that usually becomes evident after the snow piles up and ground foraging is not available. We saw a bald eagle today too which isn't unusual. We had some news today that our Executive Director, Kelli, is resigning her position at RBG to take a position at Blackhawk Technical College as the Director of their foundation and alumni association. We wish her the best and thank her for her past 9.5 months here at RBG. Gary Smith, a Board Member and volunteer, will be our interim Executive Director for the third time in the past six years! We appreciate his help with the transition and look forward to another good year out in the gardens and with our events, education oppportunities and fundraising. To the right is Dick H. wrapping lights this morning. He and Dick P. (above right) like to match their red hats which is quite odd. To the left is the "architecturally cool" seed head of a purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea 'Prairie Splendor') out in the gardens this morning. Structures like this do double duty of offering visual interest and food for wildlife.

Our first lecture offering of the year is coming up in less than two weeks on Wednesday evening, January 18th at 6:30 pm at the Parker Education Center. We'll have Karl Bethke from the Badger Bonsai Society (http://badgerbonsai.wordpress.com/) coming to talk about Bonsai Basics. The lecture fee is $5 for RBG members and $10 for others (walk-ins welcome). He'll also be doing a hands-on workshop in the spring on this same subject. I'm excited about this as we've never had this topic presented at RBG and look forward to having Karl here. On Saturday, January 21st (10 am - 11:30 am), we'll be hosting a demo/tasting event called Reinventing Winter Comfort Foods that will be facilitated by Basics Cooperative (Janesville) at the Parker Education Center. Details including fees and pre-registration information is on our website (www.rotarybotanicalgardens.org). To the right is Ron W. taking lights off of the obelisks in the reception garden. Right after this photo was taken he asked whom he could "thank" for the creative application of lights on these eight obelisks (Big John) which was creating major headaches for the un-decoration process. I was asked years ago to never put lights on a tree again unless I was willing to take those same lights off! That's why I stick with cords. Below are two more colorful photos from today. Directly below are the needles of the Korean fir (Abies koreana) that show such nice silvering on the undersides of the slightly recurved needles. At the bottom is one of the ornamental kales (Brassica) that Marv and Terry planted back in September.