Friday, March 13, 2009

A Nice Day In The Windy City

I spent most of yesterday at the Chicagoland Flower & Garden Show. One of the award-winning displays can be seen above with this uber-cool flower quilt. The show has suffered in past years with decreased displays and vendors but the quality of show increased dramatically this year and I took many pictures. Ed Lyon and I both had good crowds at our presentations and I think I've encouraged some potential new visitors to drive west for 2 hours and see our botanic garden. Check out the cool moss display below. This artistic rendition was the centerpiece of the show and very well done.
Good volunteer turnout today for what would normally be a "light day". Dr. Gredler has finished the last of the pink obelisks and the picture below really relays how excited he is about it! Marv has been working on flipping our enormous compost pile so we have some available compost this spring. He's done an awesome job keeping up with this project and it's nice to let people know that we do indeed create our own compost on such a large scale. Marianne was in the office with me and she continues to sift and organize are old records and photos. I'm glad we're doing this now and not leaving it for another 20 years! Dick W. was out cutting down ornamental grasses in the garden. With some warm ups coming this month, we typically cut down most of our ornamental grasses although you could easily leave them up another month or so. The exception are the "cool-season" grasses like Calamagrostis, Deschampsia, Helictotrichon, etc. that start growing very early and benefit from having the old foliage removed prior to active growth. Essentially, you don't want to be cutting in to new growth. We prefer the "tidy look" early on. Perennial grass division is best done as the grass just emerges from the soil. It's important to note that dividing some of the larger grasses like Miscanthus, Sorghastrum, Panicum, etc. can be quite an endeavor! A portion of our obelisk assortment can be seen below.


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