Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. day!  Today was light on staff and volunteers as freezing rain descended in this area all morning and the roads were horrible.  Our primary focus in the coming months will be the dismantling, retrieval, collection, processing and storage of our Holiday Light Show (HLS) which is officially done with the exception of having limited lights around the Parker Education Center for some rentals this month.  We will begin in earnest tomorrow with continued take down and processing of the show with Larry H., Larry O., Big John and Cindy leading the charge along with many volunteers.  Our carpenters and some other volunteers have plenty of indoor work to accomplish as well while I’ll focus on seed ordering over the coming weeks.  Information on our 2017 Garden Art project will be coming out soon as well as more information on our wonderful educational opportunities this year.  Don’t miss our first lecture on Thursday, January 26th at 6:30 pm on “The Bugs You Love to Hate” by Phil Pelliterri (distinguished faculty emeritus, UW-Madison) and check out future offering as well.

I thought some color would be in order on this dreary day and am featuring eight relatively new false indigo selections from the Chicago Botanic Garden (CBG) and more specifically, from the exceptional breeding program of Dr. Jim Ault from CBG.  I should mention that all of these photos are courtesy of the Chicago Botanic Garden.  Many years ago, the Chicago Botanic Garden, through the Chicagoland Grows® program, introduced four excellent selections of false indigo (Baptisia) selections from the Prairieblues™ series.  These initial selections, ‘Twilite’, ‘Starlite’, ‘Midnight’ and ‘Solar Flare’, are all excellent and do well in the garden with long lasting spring blooms.  While each of these varieties has a different color contribution, their needs for full sun, room to grow, average to good soils, etc. are very similar and I encourage you to research these selections (and their needs/contributions) further or come see them at RBG next spring.  However, eight more beautiful selections are now being offered as Prairieblues™ introductions and they are all shown in this blog.  Visit the Chicagoland Grows® website at www.chicagolandgrows.org/ for more information on all twelve of these wonderful selections and see the complex breeding and/or selecting that has occurred to bring these tough perennials to so many gardeners.  The photos above and below show the selection ‘Blue Mound’.

‘Blue Mound’

‘Lavender Rose’ (above and below)

‘Lunar Eclipse’ (above and below)

‘Mojito’ (above and two photos below)

‘Royal Purple’ (above and below)

‘Sandstorm’ (above and below)

‘Spilled Buttermilk’ (above and below)

‘Sunny Morning’ (above and two photos below)

Are petunias overused and ubiquitous in the landscape? No.  I’m a huge fan of petunias and at Rotary Botanical Gardens, we plant about 20,000 every year.  Their range of colors, durability, heat tolerance and applicability in a wide range of situations (bed, border, container, etc.) is noteworthy and they should always be under consideration for significant impact in the garden.  There are many excellent seed grown varieties and I can’t say that I’ve explored all of those options although we’ll  have about 30 seed grown varieties planted in the gardens each year.  However, the last five years has seen some unbelievable breeding efforts and developments in vegetative selections (seen above and below at the California Spring Trials last spring).  Ten years ago the idea of a black or orange petunia was wishful thinking…not any more.  The yellow petunias continue to improve and the lime/chartreuse is being explored nicely as a solid color or contributing edge color.  The range of solid colors is not only impressive, those that feature multiple colors (striped, streaked, “margined”, etc.) are quite entrancing as well although designing with them requires the consideration of all their “contributing hues”.  I took photos last year of over 250 varieties of relatively new petunia selections and am excited about what is currently available.  Seed grown varieties are more affordable either grown from seed or purchased as 4 packs or flats.  The “per plant” price is less than the vegetative selections that are offered in a small container at an average price of $3.50 per plant or so.  If you consider every petunia variety a paint color in your design palette, that palette continues to expand in an exciting way, allowing for a lot of fun in the full sun garden.  As consumers (of petunias!), we all have budgets but don’t neglect consideration of some of the unbelievable varieties that will be available this spring at your local garden center or other venues!

Amore™ Queen of Hearts

Amore™ Joy

Amore™ Mio

Amore™ Fiesta

Boom Little Antique Pink

Classic Blue Ray

ColorWorks™ Blue Star

ColorWorks™ Homare

Crazytunia® Citrus Twist

Crazytunia® Lucky Lilac

Crazytunia® Stonewashed

Glow™ Forest Fire

Happy® Fire Red

Happy Magic® Cremissimo

Happy Magic® Giant Dijon

Happy® Yellow Orange Stripes

Moonstone Beach

Perfuctunia™ Mandarin

Potunia® Plus Papaya

Sanguna® Lavender Vein

Sanguna® Patio Blue Morn

SUCCESS!® Pink Chiffon

SUCCESS!® Pink Vein

Supertunia® Daybreak Charm

Supertunia® Pink Star Charm

Surprise™ Lemon Frost

Surprise™ Purple Ice

Sweetunia® Miss Marvel

Sweetunia® Pink Touch

Sweetunia® Purple Touch

TriTunia™ Blue Star

Viva Glow Cappuccino

Whispers™ Star Rose

While our successful and much enjoyed 2016 Holiday Light Show (HLS) is officially over, we still have some rental opportunities that will use the show to some degree or another.  The photo above was taken last week when we took down some perimeter lights in advance of the cold weather.  We’re poised to start significant take down of the HLS next week which is a very organized approach that considers how we collect, organize, test. process and pack away everything for the show.  Mother Nature is a huge factor as you can imagine and with a bigger show than ever, this will be a significant endeavor to be sure.  Many grounds staff members and volunteers will be part of this process which will result in hundreds of carts filled as you see above!  My focus is on seed ordering right now with just some of my catalog stacks seen directly below…awaiting exploration.  I absolutely love going through catalogs and the “kid in a candy store” analogy is always appropriate when I start this process.  As much as I feel guilty (not really) about being inside with catalogs (yay!), the HLS processing is always handled well.

We had a nice turnout of volunteers today.  Larry H. and Larry O. were working on various HLS tasks and projects in the Horticulture Center with Larry H. heading out in the gardens for some work as well.  Our volunteers (Jim, Dave, Ron Y., Ron P., Vern, Marv, Bobby K., Del, Gary S., Maury, Dr. Gredler, Dick H., Bill O. and Peg L.) all had indoor projects which includes carpentry projects, tidying, organizing and plant record updates (Peg).  It was a very productive day and thankfully a heat wave has moved in as the recent “arctic tundra” temperatures have moved along…

the Heirloom Garden will be back in 2017 with more exciting plants (see labels above)

my system above includes entering seed packets as they arrive….above are all trial plants

I’ve taken too long of a break from this Horticulture blog!  As our Holiday Light Show (HLS) finished up on December 30th, my efforts now shift to all of our 2017 plant ordering.  I still have about 50 seed catalogs to peruse but I always consider that task one of my favorites at RBG!  The HLS went quite well with a great surge of visitation during that last week between Christmas and New Year’s eve.  We don’t have final attendance numbers yet but it will be in excess of 25,000 guests which, while less than last year, is still quite respectable considering the weather we had in December.  A big thank you goes out to our staff and volunteers involved with this huge event although we are still looking at three months of taking down the HLS and getting it efficiently packed away.  I’ve been taking some time at home which also includes organizing some orders and sifting through photos of my 2016 trial garden visits.

I continue to run across a wide range of really cool Marguerite daisy (Argyranthemum frutescens) selections that are quite lovely.  The color range includes whites, cream, pinks and yellows.  Flowers range in size from 1″-2″ wide on average.  The single forms all have a yellow center but the neat double forms offer some excellent interest as well.  We’ve displayed Marguerite daisies (also called cobbitty daisies) at the gardens in the past and they’ve always done quite well with strong flowering throughout the summer.  This plant, native to the Canary Islands, is an annual in our climate and prefers full sun, decent soils and adequate moisture.  Heights will range from 18″ to 30″ or so in our climate although pinching back a plant can increase flowering on a shorter specimen.  They don’t mind the heat although flowering will slow a bit with intense temperatures.  I’ll certainly be looking for many of these selections with all these photos taken this past year.  Varieties do not come true from seed and all of these are offered as vegetative selections (plugs, rooted cuttings or plants).  The variety above is Angelic™ Candy Pink.

Angelic™ Ruby

Angelic™ Snow

‘Beauty Yellow’

Day-Zee® Double Vanilla

Day-Zee® Red

Day-Zee® Vanilla

Glory™ Pink

Go Daisy® Fully Ruby

‘Honeybees Double White’

‘Honeybees Yellow Cream’

Sassy® Double Yellow

‘Sole Mio Improved’

‘Summit Pink’

‘Summit Yellow’

Vanilla Butterfly®

Pure White Butterfly™

Day-Zee® Double White

Well, three nights down and fourteen nights to go!  The Holiday Light Show (HLS) saw steady visitation over this past weekend and the 6-8″ of fluffy snow that arrived only made the show look better!  Special thanks go out to our snow removal crew yesterday that frantically removed 4″-5″ of snow a couple of hours before the show started (with snow still falling).  Our shoveling crew of a dozen volunteers did an exceptional job.  I worked the HLS last night and despite slippery roads and a Green Bay Packer game (always tough to compete with the green and gold), we had a decent crowd enjoy what I think was the most picturesque evening of the HLS, EVER!  I had my camera and all these photos were taken last night!  Spread the word about this vital fundraising event and guide folks to our website for information on dates, times, pre-purchasing of tickets, parking advice, etc.  Our staff is doing a wonderful job of managing this event but our volunteers continue to play a vital role nightly in helping facilitate this huge event with many “moving pieces”.  Enjoy the photos but come see it in person.

the snow was falling straight down on our druid’s head with 8″ of accumulation!