While I haven’t been blogging as frequently as usual due to spring exhaustion issues, the wonderful color out in the gardens hasn’t taken any time off! We’ve seen lots of visitors this week and the garden continues to progress in terms of planting, tidying and the progression of late spring color as we head towards summer. Our volunteers continue to be exceptional and the addition of our three new grounds staff members (Brian, Chuck and Sean) has helped immensely as well. We continue to improve the gardens daily and feel our 30th Anniversary year may be one of our best in terms of color and impact.

This morning was darn right chilly at about 45 degrees F. That reminds me more of May than June but the day did warm up after some late morning rain. We had a very productive day both inside and outside. Our grounds crew of Big John, Terry, Cindy, Sean, Larry and I all had lots of different duties and shifted inside easily for some indoor projects during the hour or so of rainfall (not unwelcome). Our volunteers today included Kathy, Eva, Tim, Stan, Kristin, Kath, Marleen, Barb, Terri, Sandi, Cora, Jane, Dr. Gredler, Bill, Urban, Rollie, Mary Kay, Janice, Art and many others. It was another busy and productive day with LOTS of kids out in the gardens enjoying tours and programs by our wonderful education volunteers.

The rain held off today with the exception of a couple of light sprinkles here and there. The day was extremely productive with our grounds staff and volunteers “firing on all cylinders”! Terry, Larry, Big John, Brian, Sean and Chuck all had busy days with a wide range of tasks including weeding, mulching, composting, edging, rototilling, lawn repair, plant inventories, plant pick-ups and much more! During the day, our volunteers of Kathy, Eva, Kay, Kath, Sandi, Terri, Barb, Dennis, Bill, Dave and many more accomplished a wide range of tasks. We also had 16! volunteers at our Wednesday evening volunteer work evening (see above) with great help from Tina and John. Thanks to the evening crew and their productivity. The gang planted in earnest and I was hard pressed to keep up! Great progress!

We had some light drizzle this morning which later transformed in to a significant and pounding deluge. We accomplished quite a few indoor tasks and the grounds crew (Cindy, Larry H., Brian and Bobby K.) all had projects to contend with during the inclement weather. We did duck outside for some gardening but Mother Nature prodded us inside with consistent rainfall. Our volunteers (Kathy, Eva, Urban, Bill, Dave K., Steve, Barb, Marlene, Mary, Jenny, Bill, Dave and others) had a busy day…primarily inside. The sun peaked out later in the afternoon but it was a damp day overall which may thwart some of our planting plans at the Volunteer Work Day tomorrow…although we’ll have gardening projects regardless. Planting in mud isn’t desirable or ideal! :(

The last couple of days have been a whirlwind continuation of our whirlwind approach to spring planting, weeding and garden preparations. The cooler weather has continued along with some timely rainfall as we begin our serious planting season. Our volunteer planting evening on Wednesday night had 10 helpful volunteers along with John and myself. The rain caught up to us but not before we put in a couple thousand more plants. Many volunteers (Sandi, Terri, Kay, Marleen, Kath, etc.) are already actively planting in their assigned garden areas and I’m endeavoring daily to keep a step ahead of our planters. In the meantime, many other gardening tasks can’t be neglected as our focus shifts to planting. We continue to work on spring clean-up, edging, water feature work, weeding, mowing and much more. We are also keeping an eye on many trees and shrubs that were damaged our outright killed this past winter. Some are late to leaf out but others have likely perished…time will tell. We’ve had very solid turnouts of volunteers over the last couple of days and look forward to continued, collective progress!