Back To Business

We had another nice turn out of volunteers this morning at the Horticulture Center. While I'm still recovering from the WPT Garden Expo, it was nice to catch up some projects around the office today. While light snow started late this morning, the sunrise (bottom photo) was quite fetching. The top picture shows, from left to right, Kay, Marianne and Pat (new volunteer) in the office this morning. The ladies were helping write labels for our seed orders and did a nice job keeping everything organized. The orange labels correspond to our "bulk" and "miscellaneous" items and every tag will ultimately correspond to one flat of that variety. It sounds like all three ladies will be back tomorrow morning to finish the task. The next steps after this process is complete is to sort all the seed packets by grower, finalize the growing lists and deliver the seeds. We're still waiting for a couple back-ordered items but can't slow down our process at this point as we need to drop off the seeds very shortly. Directly above is the first batch of tree signs that Larry prepared this weekend. We've found that this size is perfect for offering some anchoring for these labels and we'll be able to install these easily by using a 3" diameter auger (on a drill) to start the holes. The cups peel away from the concrete quite easily. Larry will need to make about 30 more batches like this over the coming weeks to keep ahead of our label production. To the right is Larry sizing up our bowl planters which were addressed by Marv and Terry later in the morning (see below). This set-up, which will be on taller pvc pipes, will work nicely as we get them assembled and painted over the coming months. Further below is Marv offering Kay an opportunity for a new hat. While Kay and Pat were working on labels, Marianne also prepared my handouts for my talk tonight on Fragrant Annuals at Olbrich Botanical Gardens (Madison, WI). While this will be my seventh presentation in four days, I never get tired of talking about plants and promoting RBG. Janice was in for most of the morning working on preparing informative plant sale signs. She and Marianne also did a nice job organizing some of the office (which really needed it).

Larry and Dick H. unpacked all of our Garden Expo materials from our trailer early this morning. Larry moved on to other projects while Dick H. continued cutting and bending more aluminum stakes for our woody plant labels. Bill O. came in later to help Larry around the Horticulture Center. Urban was out pruning in the gardens all morning and we had Dr. Gredler painting large obelisks (dark blue). Dave, Vern, Jim and Bob continued work on repairing the trash and recycling bins and have plenty of projects lined up. Del and Dick W. continued work on the sleigh cutouts and have another two weeks or so of finishing up this project. We also saw Gary, Polly, Amanda and many others today. The winter images here were from my walk thru Olbrich Botanical Gardens (Madison, WI) last Friday. They do such a nice job with their containers in general and winter is no exception. Note the use of not only greens but colorful dogwood stems (Cornus) and bittersweet (Celastrus) fruits.

Despite the long weekend at the WPT Garden Expo, it is always a great opportunity for us to share what we are all about to a large, captive audience. It's interesting to see event attendees shy away from the booth as they think we're trying to sell something. Well, we are to a certain degree. Despite such great "word of mouth" promotions of the gardens over the years, there are still many that have not visited or perhaps hadn't even heard of us yet. I like to think that if we get them to the garden, we'll have them "hooked"! Kudos to the WPT staff that organizes this event and we appreciate all that Shelley Ryan has done to promote RBG personally and professionally. Don't forget the Orchids for Everyone talk this Wednesday evening (6:30 pm) at the Parker Education Center.

Garden Expo A Rousing Success

Day three of the WPT Garden Expo ended at 4 pm today and it was the usual crazy crunch of vendors and visitors leaving exhibition hall (Alliant Center). Judging by the volume of traffic over the course of the weekend, it looked like a great show. It will be interesting to see the final attendance numbers. The images here were ones I took early this morning before the droves of visitors came in at 10 am. Above are two shots from The Flower Factory booth which had this neat, mini billboard sign too. Note the little blue snail? head poking up from that flat of perennials. The Flower Factory is a superb nursery for perennials and I'm currently going thru their 4,000+ offerings with my highlighters in hand.
Amanda and I ran the booth this morning and I saw Ed. L. right away. I had a talk on Vertical Gardening at noon which was absolutely packed and I think it went ok based on some of the comments I heard after the presentation. With only 45 minutes allowed per program, I gave just a taste of the many options for vertical gardening. It was nice to see the educational programs so well attended for this event and I think they are just as enticing for event visitors as the vendors and other offerings. WPT has done a nice job with this event and Shelley Ryan, host/producer of The Wisconsin Gardener, is the one that started it all. Yesterday she hosted a panel discussion with Larry Meiller of Garden Talk (WI Public Radio) that took a look back at the 20 years of her show. I was part of the panel and felt out of place with all the VIPs. There was Dr. Brian Hudelson, UW Plant Pathologist, Phil Pelliterri, UW Entomologist and Neil Diboll, President of The Prairie Nursery (Westfield, WI). All of us had been on Shelley's show many times and were asked questions about gardening changes, trends, etc. over the past 20 years. I believe Shelley has filmed 14 times at RBG in the past and I was in all but one of them. It was fun, humourous and really a testament to what Shelley has accomplished with her show. The room was packed and there was no shortage of Shelley fans! Below are two smiling members of the WI Hardy Plant Society which is one of my favorite organizations. Aside from vendors selling products, it was nice to see so many clubs, groups, societies, botanic gardens, etc. also represented.

To the right (both pictures) is the display of alpines that the WI/IL Chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society set up at their booth. I love this type of gardening and I think this group will visit RBG this summer and offers some verbal and physical assistance with improvements in our alpine garden and Scottish highlands garden. The members of this group (of which I'm one) are hardcore alpine enthusiasts and I'm always amazed by their plant knowledge. Cool use of troughs too as you see here.

Jim, Mary and Jody helped at the booth this afternoon as I had another talk (Annuals of Interest) at 2 pm. Jim, Jody and I packed up the booth and made three group trips to get everything out of our booth space. I was back in Janesville by 5 pm and I'm unwinding before heading back in to work tomorrow to get moving on seed sorting, woody plant labels and the typical "day to day" activities. Tomorrow night I'll talk about Fragrant Annuals at Olbrich Botanical Gardens (Madison, WI). Some of the cool metal art I saw at the Expo is at the bottom.

Blogging From The Expo

Not much time to type as the EXPO is starting! We had more snow than expected today and it was a bit dicey for travel. Big John and I got up here without incident and got the booth set-up quickly (see above). Some of the shots below are also from the EXPO. John and I had a good lunch and I then shot over to Olbrich Botanical Gardens here in Madison. I think I was the only one who put footprints on that garden today as it was brutal out there with blowing snow and cold. I got some nice shots though and enjoyed the conservatory. I saw Luba at Olbrich then ran in to many friends at the EXPO (Ed L., Ed, John, Mike M., Annieliese, etc.). I also saw Kyle and Dee from K&W Greenery (Janesville).It's funny how you see the same people each year and it doesn't take long to catch up. Further down is a shot of Ed L. in the booth for the Allen Centennial Gardens. He insisted that I put it in. More later. The herds are approaching....The grass below is the Hakone grass (Hakonechloa macra). This is the green-leaved variety that gets some nice height and I love this winter coloration and structure. Olbrich has some huge specimens and their use of ornamental perennial grasses is second to none. I was surprised that Epping and his grounds crew weren't out in this weather as it wouldn't have slowed us down in Janesville! :)

Seed Sorting Begins

With about 90% of our seeds having arrived, Marianne and I took a big dent out of the pile above. What you can't see are the ones she put on adjacent chairs and look at the couch in the back left of the image. These are seeds for our plant sale vegetables, Smelly Garden plants, All-America Selections (AAS) collection, Fleuroselect collection, ornamental edibles and trial program (Ball Seed, PanAmerican Seed, Takii Seed). As I went thru these packets, I sorted them by collection as each collection will have corresponding color labels. For instance, any flat of plants that comes back from the nursery with a yellow label will be part our AAS collection and can be grouped, hauled and planted accordingly. This has streamlined the process as we previously just used white labels which then necessitated more sorting in the yard as we looked for various varieties and tried to group them by collection after they arrived. After collections of seeds are grouped, I write a number on each packet that corresponds to the number of flats (48 plants per flat) that will be grown for that variety. We then write that many labels and attach them to the seed packet. These seeds/flats will result in about 75,000 of our annuals out in the gardens this year. Marianne already took a batch to work on and we'll get thru the rest next week with the help of Kay and a new volunteer, Pat. I had three meetings at the Parker Education Center today so snapped some photos out front including the golden needles of the 'Skyline' Oriental spruce (Picea orientalis). This conifer gets the best gold coloration in winter and ours has a nice protected spot near the main building that helps block the dessicating winter winds. The picture to the left is a bit "artsy" but shows the shadow silhouette of the contorted European filbert (Corylus avellana 'Contorta') which is also called Harry Lauder's walking stick. Dick H. was walking by me when I took the photo of the brick wall and just shook his head. I also finalized some preparations for the WPT Garden Expo (starts tomorrow) and finished another presentation. This morning, I was invited to the Morning Rotary meeting which is held at the gardens. Gary, Maury and Polly were also there representing the gardens as we wanted to thank them for the awesome donation of the new digital sign that was installed about a month ago. It was nice to see Kelli and other supporters of the gardens. The Morning Rotary has been a staunch supporter of the gardens over the years. The two photos at the bottom show the dedication ceremony this morning. To the right and directly below is a picture of an "onion hoe" which I recently saw in a catalog. I thought it looked sturdy and ordered one to try out in the gardens. It really is nicely made and we'll see if the volunteers approve of its performance. The "proof is in the pudding" as they say, although I never figured out what that meant anyway.We had a nice turnout of volunteers throughout the day. Aside from organizing and labeling seeds, Marianne also processed our remaining orders and has done a nice job keeping things organized for my sake. Janice was in to work on plant sale duties and our new volunteers, Pete and Pat, showed up to meet our Grumpies. Marv and Terry (to the right) cleaned up fifteen of our older, 8" diameter PVC pipes that we'll be using to support our new containers. The guys did a nice job. These were formerly used as upright planters when we had the blue/yellow theme and the red/maroon theme. Marv had devised securing 8" mum pots about 15" down from the top of the pipes that were then set vertically out in the garden. We typically planted plants that would then spill down the pipes. The watering was a challenge and it has been pointed out that my new idea (pots on pipes) wont be much easier. Del and Dick W. continued their work on the reindeer and sleigh cutouts (see to the left and lower right). Vern, Dave T. and Bob A. continued working on the repair of our garbage and recycling bins. They have quite a list of projects to tackle in the coming months. Dr. Gredler continued painting obelisks and Maury was around to run out for supplies. Dick H. worked on some repairs at the other building and helped Larry load up our Garden Expo materials this morning. Bill O. tidied up in the Horticulture Center and went out pruning with Larry this afternoon. Urban was also in to continue pruning in the woodland walk garden. We also saw Chuck S., Polly, Gary, Dave G. and many others today.

I may not be blogging tomorrow as I'll be at the Garden Expo all day with Big John. It's always quite interesting to set-up as there are a limited number of carts for hauling in supplies to the Exhibition Hall (Alliant Energy Center). It is quite a frantic pace as various booths get ready for the 4 pm start of the event although some of the more elaborate displays started with set-up today. While our booth set-up is fairly simple, it is comfortable for our staff and volunteers and allows visitors to duck out of the crazy herd of traffic. I'll take some pictures at the Expo and try to keep everyone updated. Tomorrow night is my talk on "Annuals of Interest" (6 pm).

Enjoy Your Moss

With the lack of snow cover and warmer temperatures, our moss out in the gardens is perking up nicely. Mosses stay green throughout the winter as they continue to photosynthesize if exposed to direct sunlight. The two horizontal photos above and two below were sent to me today from Dale S. (aka "Mr. Moss") from his garden in Waukesha, WI. Dale has an unbelievable garden (beyond mosses too!) and has collected/incorporated mosses throughout his garden which does have plenty of shade. I met Dale years ago and have visited his garden twice in the past couple of years. His uses of moss would inspire anyone to consider utilizing them more actively as a design element in the garden. He is dabbling with many types of moss (he knows the Latin names too!) and has mosses in a full sun location (including the two moss shots further below). Dale has visited RBG many times and has seen our "moss island" in the fern & moss garden. Dale will be consulting with us this year and giving some advice on moss selection and establishment. In fact, he's already been scouting some mosses for our garden. I don't recall where I took the shot to the above right, but it sure shows the value of moss as a garden element and groundcover. To the left is a wonderful, award-winning resource on Moss Gardening by George Schenk that I highly recommend for those that might be interested in this topic.

Our moss island started over eight years ago with Jenny and Janice transplanting moss patches that we found already existing in the gardens. We did actually mail order some mosses and learned a lot about provenance (place of origin) and how it relates to establishment. All those mosses died quickly. Janice has been responsible for keeping an eye on the moss for many years now and keeps up with watering, tidying, augmenting, etc. Recently, Marv has contributed some mosses, clubmosses, mossy rocks, etc. and has helped out too. It will be nice to get Dale's perspective on improving this garden space as we have all liked what he is doing at home. Images of his moss garden were included in an article (on that topic) in the American Gardener magazine, the publication for the American Horticultural Society. To the right is a shot I took in the front yard of Dale's garden two years ago when the grounds staff took a trip out there and then down to the Morton Arboretum. This is a full sun patch of moss that has further established and Dale's recent shots below are from that same area. That reddish haze is created by the sporophyte stage of the moss which has no flowers or seeds and relies on dissemination of fertile spores. Mosses also don't need soil (see the top photo) because they don't have true roots (rhizoids) and receive nutrients from rainwater on an intercellular level. With a 400 million year history, mosses continue to be an important part of a wide range of landscapes and WI has over 400 types of native mosses alone! When you're next outside, take a look at how green those mosses are between the cracks in the bricks, under the gutters, at the base of the tree and any where else they have happily established. The biology of mosses is quite interesting and well worth further research.

We had some activity both at the Horticulture Center and out in the gardens today. Urban was out pruning in the woodland walk garden for a good portion of the day (see bottom photo). With the warm weather, the maples (Acer sp.) are really "bleeding" as seen to the right on this sugar maple (Acer saccharum). Look up higher to the left in that image and see the little sap icicles (sapcicles) forming! Urban and I did a little pruning walk and Jumbo Jim joined us for a bit before checking out the Japanese and alpine gardens. We saw some of the youth education volunteers from a distance as they were preparing for future program out in the arboretum. Everyone was bundled up but I recognized Shirley, Mary B., Barb and an "unidentifiable" (maybe Bev). To the left is the interesting and ornamental bark of the Kentucky coffeetree (Gymnocladus dioicus).

Dr. Gredler was in to paint more obelisks. Luis caught up with creating the next batch of woody plant labels and Gary was over to help him troubleshoot some of the recent problems. Janice was in to work on plant sale information and signs. We also saw Phil, Barry, Maury, John C. and some others today.

I finished some preparations for the WPT Garden Expo (www.wigardenexpo.com/) this weekend. Tomorrow we'll pack everything up in the truck and trailer for our Friday morning expedition (Big John and I are setting up). All of my talks are ready but I had to finish my talk on "Annuals for Scent" that I'll be giving at Olbrich Botanical Gardens (Madison, WI) next Monday. This was a fun topic (new for me) to prepare as I haven't focused just specifically on fragrant annuals and I had no shortage of images that I took in our Smelly Garden last year. I also made a couple more plant orders and am trying to find the last of some specialty items that I'd like for our compositions this year. To the right is distance view of the arched bridge thru the exfoliating bark on the river birch (Betula nigra 'Heritage'). We just finished details for our 2012 Garden Photography Contest and details can be found at www.rotarybotanicalgardens.org/events/photography-contest. We're exactly two months away from the RBG Netherlands Trip and just found out there is last minute room for any interested parties. Contact me if you have any interest. The itinerary is on our website.