Today was insanely busy at the gardens with our first day of the Spring Plant Sale open for the public (9 am until 6 pm). It runs tomorrow from 8 am until 5 pm and on Sunday from 10 am until 4 pm. Our Members Only Preview last night (4:30 pm – 7:30 pm) was well attended and is one of many great benefits associated with becoming a RBG Member! The photo directly below (today) was during a surge of customers off the bus in the distance (from Green Bay). The group had toured the gardens and popped over to pick up some plants. Our volunteers did a wonderful job as usual and we have a full weekend of excitement ahead of us. It was also a crazy day out in the gardens. Brian and Bobby K., our two grounds people today, had a busy day of water feature repair, mowing and the guys finished putting up the rest of our 2019 Garden Art Projects – Dragonflies! These 30 unique art pieces are beautiful and are scattered around the gardens and are auctioned off in September. This day was so busy that I’ll consolidate the descriptions of the other things happening (all important)! We had volunteer help from Oakhill Christian School (11 students and 2 teachers) with assistance from our volunteers, Steve and Dennis. The RECAPPERS were in to work on some projects and we had multiple volunteers out tidying the gardens for the weekend. Dr. Gredler, Bill and Rollie were all in for their mowing rounds and I had a visit from two UW-Madison students, Gustavo and Casey, who brought some plants to us that they had grown as a class project (see below). There was a lot going on but it was a productive and beautiful day out there. Our volunteer involvement today was immense so I’ll pass along a collective THANK YOU to our awesome volunteers!

Today was insanely busy but we had our grounds staff and volunteers in full motion. We all dodged raindrops today and while it never really warmed up, everyone experienced extended and repeated dampness! We had a great tagging crew (see below) of Tina, Becky, Edie, Olive, Karen, Gerrie, Kath, Eva, Kathy, Shirley, Gene, Lucy, Sharon, Barb B., Barb C., Robert and Renee. The crew put labels in thousands of vegetables and priced our perennials and herbs. We had more plant deliveries and plenty of more bagged compost arrived as well ($6/bag). The labeling project was a monumental task which we tried to accommodate inside as best we could with the inclement weather. Our grounds crew of John, Brian, Bob and myself had a busy day with plenty of activity both out in the gardens and related to the plant sale preparations at the Horticulture Center. We also saw Urban, Maury, John J., Bill O., Dr. Gredler, Alan M., Dave K., Janice, Mike, Sondra, Alan, Dick H., Jeff and many others.

We had a very productive Tuesday at the gardens with much of our activity focused on taking advantage of the decent weather before rain arrives over the coming days. With final preparations in full swing for our Spring Plant Sale this weekend (see our website for details), there is much to do both in regards to the sale itself (an important fundraiser) and continuing to tidy up the gardens. The sale will feature a wide range of vegetables, herbs, perennials and much more!

The grounds staff of John, Terry, Cindy, Brian, Bob and I all had myriad duties out in the gardens. With impending rain, I fertilized almost all of our turf which has been growing vigorously with all the recent rains. The crew had various duties related to our looming plant sale as well as getting the gardens in order for a busy weekend. Tasks included garden tidying, rototilling, early weed control efforts, string trimming, fountain installation and much more. The weather this weekend currently looks pretty good which should translate in to solid visitation for both the gardens and the Spring Plant Sale. Our volunteers (lots of couples today!) included Janice and the Chestnut House volunteers, Cathy and Josh E., Stan and Kristin K., Greg and Cheryl P., Kathy, Eva, Bill O., Dr. Gredler, Alan, Sandi, Barb, Steve J., Tina B. (great help out in pre-plant sale!), Bob and Bev D., Mary Kay and many others. It was a busy day. We’ll see how the weather plays out over the coming days!

The rain has settled in nicely this week although today was surprisingly dry and thereby productive out in the gardens! Evergreen Irrigation (Rockford, IL) was here for a second day getting our system up and running and repairing broken lines and sprinkler heads. Our aging system out there needs lots of TLC and the guys do a nice job. We were able to get quite a bit of work done today with both staff (John, Terry, Bobby K. and Brian) and volunteer (Urban, Chris, Dr. Gredler, Maury, Kathy P., etc.) help. We also went on two trips to retrieve plants (some for the looming Spring Plant Sale and some for us…) and had some deliveries as well. We are certainly maximizing the capacity of our three little hoop houses with some cold nights coming up. It was a productive day although I believe the rain returns in earnest tomorrow.

We’ve had some generous donations and allocated funds to build and update our vehicular fleet at the gardens with some recent additions seen further below in the blog. Some of the photos also show plants that will be offered at the upcoming sale (see our website for details). Crazy busy time of year!

I think this might be my first blog encompassing a full week. I’m starting to wonder how I ever fit in a more frequent blogging schedule but will do my best to be a bit more prompt. It was both a short and long week with lots of action and activity as we continue to gear up for our busiest season of the year. I was up in Northern Wisconsin earlier in the week for some presentations and enjoyed a visit to Olbrich Botanical Gardens (OBG) and Green Bay Botanical Garden (GBBG) as part of my route and planned destinations! I also had a presentation in Sturgeon Bay for the Door County Master Gardeners. Our grounds staff and volunteers kept everything running smoothly and I believe the gardens are as tidy as they ever looked this time of year. It’s crazy to think that we might have some snow this weekend but Mother Nature has thrown us plenty of curve balls in the past. A great highlight of the week was the delivery and dedication of a new CASE endloader (from Johnson Tractor) that was purchased and donated to us by longtime volunteer and garden supporter, Dr. Gerald Gredler as well as the Gredler family. The photo below shows Dr. Gredler in the bucket (front left) of the new machine which has already been used extensively this week. Other images included in this blog are from my travels and at the bottom, there are some photos from the “Make A Difference Day” volunteer mulching activity that included over 20 students from UW-Whitewater as well as folks from the City of Janesville. This crew, in three hours, spread over 80 cubic yards of mulch over our entire daylily collection and Palmer Drive berm using primarily buckets. Amazing amount of progress this week with our countless volunteers coming in daily as well!