Volunteers!

Sorry! Not much for pictures out in the gardens today. I was swamped with laying out plants this morning, followed by a long road trip for more annuals and back to a pile of overdue desk work. However, the two photos included here were taking tonight at our Volunteer Potluck which looked to have a good 100+ attendees or so which was nice to see. We had a nice event and the photo above was taken in the English cottage garden. Kudos to Lori (RBG Volunteer Coordinator) and members of the Volunteer Committee for putting this shindig together. Mary (our Executive Director) had some nice comments to start the evening as well. Sue M., our marketing staff member, was also up on the porch taking a picture which she did a nice job of last year as well. I was bummed to see how dry our front entrance garden was today as I came in the building and perhaps underestimated how dry it really has become out in the gardens. To the right is the Jerusalem sage (Phlomis tuberosa 'Amazone') in full bloom above the zig-zag bridge. I like the tiered flower arrangement and this perennial tops out around 4' tall which is impressive. I see lots of pollinators working over these blooms as well.

This morning, I placed plants (500ish?) along our larch wall bed and in the shade garden. The larch wall bed (140' long by 6' deep or so) has an orange theme this year and we had some nice planting help from Kay, Sharon, Dr. Yahr, Hal and Doris. They made quick work of that planting and some of this team then shifted down to the Nancy Yahr Memorial Children's Garden for weeding duties. Mary and Roy were in to plant more annuals in their portion of the shade garden and they also did some nice weeding nearby as well. We also saw Bill, Urban, Rose, Maury and Dr. Gredler. They all had various projects and kept busy. Urban and Rose have done a nice job staining various structures out in the gardens and took time to water some new trees too! We also saw Lynn S., Mary W. (helped water), Gordy and many others.

The grounds crew had a full day of clearing and preparing areas (among other duties). RBG is lucky to have such an elite, dedicated ground staff that are truly the unsung heroes of the day to day maintenance at the gardens. Larry and Pat both pushmowed and moved on to other projects. Larry finished repairing irrigation, continued to install signs for the oak leaf garden art project, watered, etc. Pat cleared bulb foliage, composted and spent some time in the rose garden as well. Big John did some watering, rototilling (two areas), serious composting and some other tasks. Marv did a nice job preparing the "planting pockets" and beds down in the sunken garden. He also installed some oak leaf garden art projects as well as other tasks. Marianne continued clearing bulb foliage and weeds from multiple areas. She also did a nice job intercepting and controlling a wild bunch of 1st graders that were unleashed on the gardens (or should I say Rotary Botanical Playground?). It's amazing how some parental and even teacher chaperones fail to control the kids. Janice worked on planting some seeds in our ornamental edible garden and had some help from her volunteer group in the afternoon. Janice was also heavily involved in preparations for the event this evening. Tomorrow involves plenty of watering, more planting and another plant run (to The Flower Factory).