Chicago Flower Show

I spent an enjoyable day at the Chicago Flower Show (Navy Pier) today and all the blog photos were taken there today. I met Ed L., Noel. and Anneliese this morning at the Horticulture Center and we carpooled to Chicago this morning and back (Ed driving). Traffic is always a factor but we negotiated fairly well. I briefly saw Marv and Marianne before we left RBG and I touched base with some of the things that might be happening today. I thank them for holding down the fort this morning. My presentation on Ornamental Edibles went well (70+ people or so) as did Ed's and Noel's. I met my parents at the show and we were able to check out the show and have lunch prior to my talk. We saw many familiar faces from Madison as Olbrich Botanical Gardens led a bus tour to the event today. We also saw Jeff E., Director of Horticulture, from Olbrich. We also saw Bill A. who coordinates the speakers for the show. Overall, it was a great day and with a high temperature of 82 degrees F, you would think it early summer with all those outside enjoying the weather in short and t-shirts.

Short Sleeves Today

Today was a "scorcher", at least for March, with temperatures in the low 70 degrees F. The daffodils (Narcissus) above are the first of the season (along the North Path) but many other clumps are poised and ready to open up. Normal timing for daffodil blooms for our region is mid-April so we are still about a month early in general. With all the tulips (Tulipa) poking up I'm worried that our "advanced spring" will have our mid-season tulips, timed for Mother's Day, blooming before Earth Day (April 22) this year! Oh well, they'll be beautiful nonetheless. To the left is the snow scilla (Scilla mischtschenkoana) in full bloom near the gazebo. This is our first squill to bloom and I had to get an identification on this from Russell Stafford of Odyssey Bulbs (www.odysseybulbs.com/) as I've never stumped him on any plant. Russell was Director of Horticulture at Fernwood Botanical Gardens & Nature Preserve (Niles, MI) when I was there prior to RBG. Check out his mail order nursery for some rare and choice bulbs.

To the left is Dick W. who started a monumental task of digging out soil for the soon-to-be-installed retaining wall extension leading out of the sunken garden. He had a good start until a flat tire slowed him down. We'll continue with this prep work and some additional excavations in other locations in the sunken garden for retaining wall improvements. Pat M. was also out in the gardens and continued some clean-up efforts around the perimeter of the new North Point garden. Myrt and Gena were here as well and did a nice job tidying up in the shade garden this morning where there was still quite a bit of debris to collect. To the right are some crocuses (Crocus sp.) coming up in my favorite "bulb lawn" a couple blocks from my house. I was glad to have my camera with me as my daughter and I went on our daily dog walk. I was also happy (relatively speaking) to catch a photo (to the left) of some "tree staking" gone wrong....I can imagine this stake 15 years ago next to the trunk of a new tree. The roots probably trapped the stake after a couple years making it difficult to remove and the homeowner ignored it for the next decade. This tree will ultimately "absorb" the stake and in another 40 years someone will get severely injured as they cut this tree down with a chainsaw. Examples like this are not hard to find unfortunately.

In the Horticulture Center today, Luis was in all morning to continue his woody plant label production and he put a good dent in some of our last remaining garden areas. Kay was in to process more plant sale vegetable labels and prepared some special event handouts for me. She was joined by Mary W. and Vern was in to work on some carpentry projects and helped make a new "butterfly" sign for the youth education program. To the right are the uprights for our 20 new obelisks (recently sealed by Bob A.) that will be assembled soon. Dr. Gredler was in to finish painting cucumber supports. I went around the gardens earlier with Bev F. to look at some stations for the upcoming children's programs and noted more blooms too. She also stopped back with Mary D. to discuss some other details regarding the program. We also saw Janice, Gary, Dick H. and many others today. To the left is one of our new, heavy-duty tripod sprayers that Marv and Terry requested for our summer irrigation needs. This elevated sprinkler will have a wider radius of watering and not batter plants as it launces water overhead. These guys have some established and creative ways of keeping everything watered and hopefully this type of sprayer will be beneficial.

The roofing contractors were back again today and couldn't have better weather for roofing the gazebo. There were six guys up on the gazebo this morning (see below) and their progress with installing the cedar shake is impressive. They've essentially finished the observation pier structure and may finish the gazebo yet today. As I took the bottom picture across the pond, I noted more of the "activity" seen to the right. Those holes are where rocks were installed as path edging. We've fought for 23 years with this problem of visitors, usually teenage fisherman, rolling these rocks/boulders in to the water. They are frequently looking for worms or other bait but it is SO frustrating to find this activity so prevalent and widespread around the gardens. It simply creates more work for staff and volunteers that are already spread way to thin. I'm done venting. Thanks for listening (readin). I'm off to the Chicago Flower & Garden Show (Navy Pier) tomorrow but will blog late with some shots of that event. Marv, Terry and Marianne will keep an eye on things and we should have a productive rain even with potential rain moving in to the area.

Roof Work

Today was another nice "May" day with highs near 70 degrees F. I've been contacted by our local paper, radio station and WI Public Radio regarding this heat wave and what it means for the gardens. While I am concerned about all the recent growth out in the gardens, there is little we can do but enjoy the weather for now and get an early jump on our spring clean-up efforts out in the gardens. With the warm weather and sunshine, our roofing contractor was here today and began the process of re-roofing both the gazebo (top picture) and observation pier structure (directly above). The guys had lots of material to scrape off and haul but they think they may be able to finish by the end of the day tomorrow with Wednesday being another warm and sunny day.

We had a busy morning at the Horticulture Center today. Rose and Dr. Gredler (further above) continued painting the cucumber supports and had dueling lime painting projects. We're at least 75% done with our painting efforts but still have to finish our pedastal/urn combinations, five culvert pipe planters and some other garden elements. Directly above are Kay (left) and Mary (right) who spent the morning processing the start of all our vegetable labels for the spring plant sale. The process of tearing and separating all these labels is quite monotonous but the ladies did well. Kay (to the left) could still smile and didn't throw scissors at anyone today. Janice was in to continue producing these label sheets and the end result will be prepared name labels (with additional info) for every vegetable purchased at the sale. A four pack of vegetables would have four labels (one for every plant) as we have a "mix and match" opportunity where people can combine individual plants and create their own collections. Nancy came in to help with the reference library and our Garden Development Committee met (Dr. Gredler, Gary, Joanne, Chris R., Iza and Kris K.). We reviewed the Wellness Garden plan and are proceeding with some further refinements to keep this process moving along. Larry and Bill were outside most of the day tidying up. We also saw Dick H., Jenny E., Dave E., Nick N., and many others today.

To the right is the spathe of the skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) poking out of the soil in a local woodland. This flower structure generates heat (up to 70 degrees F) as it pokes up thru cold soils and possibly snow. The smelly blooms will attract pollinators such as bees and flies but is rarely disturbed by other wildlife as it is fairly toxic. This perennial is thought to be very long-lived with specimens over 100 years old not unlikely. We don't have this plant at RBG but it is not uncommon in damp woodlands or marshes in the area. I think that structure is quite fetching although the odor of the blooms makes this plant aptly named. To the left is a Danford iris (Iris danfordiae) which is planted in the fall as a bulb. There are a dozen or so of these blooming in front of the Parker Education Center with many more emerging. These literally came up overnight as I looked for them yesterday to no avail. I've seen these blooming in late March in the past so they aren't too far off their normal bloom cycle. To the right is the Christmas rose (Helleborus niger) that I've featured recently as it has been opening up. Well, it's open and looking good!

It's not too late to pick up an oak leaf and join our "Leaf Your Cares Behind" art in the gardens project. We still have 12 of these available ($40 entry fee) and are trying to encourage placement/sponsorship of these last lonely leaves. Check out our website (www.rotarybotanicalgardens.org) for more information. At the bottom is a photo of an old master plan (1993) designed by Dennis Buettner (www.buettnerassociates.com/). Dennis, whom I've known for years, is quite talented and really did a nice job with laying out the early gardens. The formal gardens, reception garden and sunken garden followed his original plans but we've gone some other directions as well. Those that have visited the gardens in the past would note many of these garden recommendations seen here don't exist and were not implemented (particularly the eastern half of that plan) I'm using this as part of my historical reference project as we need to keep track of "what we were" and "where we've been".

At Least It Was A Sunny Start...

Yesterday was close to 70 degrees F which is t-shirt weather in Wisconsin for sure! I was outside in my own garden and took advantage of the mild weather. Of course, I couldn't help but speculate how much more would be emerging and blooming at the gardens by this morning and a brief walk thru RBG early today confirmed my predictions. The top picture shows one of our many patches of winter aconites (Eranthis hyemalis) and note the lone patch of snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) in the distance! I'm seeing many non-blooming seedlings of the winter aconite and it looks like it is truly beginning to colonize. When I worked at Fernwood Botanical Gardens & Nature Preserve (www.fernwoodbotanical.org/) in Niles, MI, we had a woodland segment of the gardens that was about 1 acre of solid winter aconites every spring. It was a literal "carpet of yellow." In 100 years, visitors to RBG will comment on the massive drifts of this early bulb! Directly above are some crocuses (Crocus sp.) blooming amongst the aconite in the gazebo garden. To the right is some moss starting to send out spore structures and of course the mosses are loving this weather. It was quite sunny for a couple hours this morning but ended up being quite rainy by late morning. To the left is another hellebore (Helleborus orientalis) in full bloom with plenty more peaking out and budding throughout the gardens.

I walked around with Pat and Urban this morning as we examined the entire gardens for the last of our pruning needs. With the ground softening up and trees budding out, our pruning window is closing quickly. Overall, though, we've done more pruning out in the gardens this winter than ever before. Thanks to Urban, Pat, Larry, Bill, Stan, Dennis and all those that helped with this important task. I also talked with Marv and Terry regarding some of our early spring tasks. A reached a comfortable point with the design for the new Wellness Garden which will be presented to the Garden Development Committee tomorrow and the Board of Directors next week. Then I hope we can proceed with fundraising and bring this garden project to the proverbial "front burner". To the right is another rare crocus in bloom that hasn't been nibbled down yet (rare because it hasn't been nibbled). It's never hard to get a good photo of our arched bridge (below) and this morning was no exception. Our carpenters will inspect this bridge for structural needs/improvements if needed and we'll get another coat or two of paint on this popular feature in April. We had a strong turnout of volunteers this morning and originally thought we'd have a "rain out". However, the morning was very productive both inside and outside. After my tour with Pat and Urban, they jumped right in to more pruning in the gazebo garden (see Pat above). Terry and Marv (directly above) pulled out more stakes and took a good look at some of our immediate spring needs around the gardens. They're always asking me to take their photo so I had to oblige today... Dick W. was also out in the gardens finishing cutting back grasses and tidying up in the woodland walk garden. I saw Mary H. out in her assigned garden space too and was happy to see her in a raincoat which was timely. Dave, Vern, Jim and Bob A. continued building our 20 new obelisks and Dr. Gredler was painting another obelisk and cucumber support. Larry spent the morning scraping the old paint off of our bike rack which will receive some repairs and a new coat of paint shortly. Dick H. and Del continued cutting aluminum stakes for our new plant labels. Marianne was in the office and processed more trees/shrub signs and is preparing them for the next step which is affixing them to their stake/anchor. Big John stopped by and ran an errand for me and we also saw Gordy from the Golden K and talked about the Spring Tree Sale (see our website). Janice came in after lunch to work on more research and plant sale preparations. She worked with Cindi on Saturday and started the production of our 23,000+ vegetable labels for the plant sale. To the right are more snowdrops (Galanthus) coming up amongst a 'Grasshopper' sedge (Carex hybrida). To the left is our moss island in the fern & moss garden looking more vivid every day. To the right are our bags of blended compost, ready for the Compost Sale (starting Saturday, April 7th, 8 am - 12 noon). This sale continues the same hours every Saturday in April and May. The surprise delivery of 900 bags of compost occured last Friday afternoon and I'm glad Big John was there to unload it.

I'll be speaking at the Chicago Flower & Garden Show (www.chicagoflower.com/) on Thursday which runs from March 10th until March 18th. I'm commuting with Ed L. and Noel V. as all three of us are speaking. I'll be talking about ornamental edibles in containers which is a fun topic. Directly below is the 'Sandra' vernal witchhazel (Hamamelis vernalis) today with some nice backlighting and at the bottom is Dr. Gredler looking excited about another cucumber support paint job ("But this darn thing will be covered up by the cucumbers!").