A Superb Day

The beautiful image above shows the pergola in the French Formal Rose Garden at Rotary Botanical Gardens. This is a painting by Connie Glowacki, a very well known and talented artist here in Janesville, WI. However, the painting is on an Adirondack chair and will be part of our Garden Art Project this year featuring 25 chairs (plus Connie's) to help celebrate and commemorate our 25th Anniversary. There is much more to Connie's chair than what is seen above too! Some of the other chairs can be seen below. Our intent is to have all of these out in the gardens prior to Mother's Day. Connie's will not be out in the gardens but will be displayed and promoted heavily throughout the growing season. There will be a live auction on Sunday, September 7th offering these chairs for sale as part of a fundraiser to support the gardens. Connie's chair will be treated a bit differently and details will be provided soon. Regardless, come see these neat chairs throughout the gardens this year!

We had a wonderful turnout of volunteers today. Above (left to right) are Kathy, Shirley and Janice (eyes closed yet again). Kathy is a new volunteer and on her second day, worked with Shirley and the ladies tidied up the Scottish garden and sunken garden. Janice just stepped in to the picture... Patrea later joined the ladies for clean-up in the sunken garden. Ron R., Ron P., Ron W. and Larry H. worked on hauling out, placing and securing more benches. Ron R. and Larry continued with some mulching later in the morning. Bob C. helped Big John haul mulch all morning in preparation for a work morning tomorrow with volunteers from the Oakhill Christian High School. Gary B. continued with his painting projects while Vern, Dave, Jim and Bob K. continued work on our next giant obelisk (20'!). Bob K. and Maury checked out some future electrical improvements and Maury did his annual cleaning and painting work on our English cottage fountain. Dick H. ran to the dump and helped Larry haul some of our Adirondack chairs to be seal coated (and brought back others as seen above). Gary worked on more Thomas Jefferson Collection signs and Jumbo Jim was in with some RECAPPERS to tidy up the Japanese garden. Pat was here doing all sorts of projects including painting and Bill O. came in to help out as well. We also saw Terri N., Kris K. and many others.

The grounds staff had a busy day today. John helped stage huge mulch piles for our volunteers tomorrow and moved on to installing some of our containers in the Pollinator's Paradise theme (Nancy Yahr Memorial Children's Garden). Jenny did lots of clean-up in multiple areas and brought back "many a load" of debris. Larry helped haul the garden art project chairs to and fro and worked on myriad other tasks. Janice put out the first cutting display of the year, worked on Thomas Jefferson Collection signs and did some gardening as well. Further below are some other bloom shots from today.