Blue Skies Smiling At Me

What a beautiful day, nary a cloud in the sky. The air was warmed with the last breath of summer. A lovely, lovely day. Just perfect for sitting inside and working on a budget. Arrgh! Oh, don't worry the plants haven't been forgotten. They got their requisite watering from both Ginny and Tyler, special thanks to Tyler for taking down the lights from the concert series. We had a new volunteer start today and she said the magic words "I love decorating for Christmas!" Don't worry, I got my piece of the action too. There were some butterflies that needed releasing. There were some frenetic but pretty orange barr sulphur butterflies, that are really yellow, and some julias, that are orange. And when I had my fill of budgeting I saddled up and kilt me sum weeds. Always a pleasant task.

Budgets and Meetings

Hi everybody,

No purdy pictures today. Yesterday I spent almost all day in front of the computer working on a budget for the garden I'm not telling you about yet. Today was spent all day in a tree conference. It was fantastic actually. I know the basics about trees. Don't bury the root flare, no girdling roots, remember to water in the winter. I still have no opinion on the whole how big do you make your planting hole and do you amend the hole debate. When I tranplanted the arbor day trees we just dug a hole splashed in some root stimulator and some vitamins and called it good. The honey locusts didn't make it but the blue spruce, atlas pine, burr oak, catalpa and redbud did. And the privet hedge seems happier back there too. The conference was good because it showed me examples of trees and reinforced what I've been trying to do at the Gardens. PRIM, which is Mike Vendegna's cute acryonym for Plan, Research, Install and Maintain. The tree tour through downtown was fun too. I wonder if we could do one in the spring or summer next year through the Gardens. Would any of you go?

Brugmansia

Well, the brugmansia bloomed. Isn't it fantastic? It looked really great yesterday with the overcast sky making all the light colors glow. This little trumpet flower is one of our successes. It was grown from a twig off of the mama plant. She had a horrible fungus and we had to cut her down which worked out ok because that corner of the greenhouse was really crowded. The fact that we grew something from a twig and didn't kill is a thing to be proud of. Next we managed to save it from the great mealy bug infestation of spring '08. And now it is flourishing and saying "Thanks!" by blooming. You can see one of our polydamas swallowtails haning out there. Another good sign.

Here it is from another view.

Remember, just because the weather outside is crummy doesn't mean you shouldn't come down to WCBG. The greenhousess usually have lots of flowers. And while the butterflies seem to be inactive on cloudy days, yesterday they were flying up a storm. Plus the jasmine was blooming and the scent was heavenly. I think the one of the best times to visit the greenhouses is during lousy weather, especially in the winter time.

It Is Tuesday Already?!

Friday we were all very excited at the new trees that were donated to the Gardens. The one on the left is a Twisty Baby Locust and the one on the right is a Siberian Pea.

Here is a paparazzi shot of our turtle. I want to name it "Greta" because every time someone comes around it gets a case of the Garbos.

And here is one very handsome toad.

I'm lucky to have such good volunteers because they are keeping everything going so I can work on the mysterious new garden. I'm not sure how it can still be much of a secret because there are so many people involved in it. Patience, soon all will be revealed.

The Good News

So I got another temperature alarm this morning. The good news is that it was at 4:44am. The good news is that there was something not right about the motor that runs the pump that circulates the water from the boiler and not some pain in the neck thing I'd never ever figure out. The good news is that it is still warm out and I could go back home and even got a 15 minute nap before starting my day for real. The good news is that Max got the watering done. The good news is that Ginny got half of the roses deadheaded. The good news is that the Career Center kids came out and did a fabulous job on the gardens. The good news is that Keith from Lunsford came out and showed me how to fix the motor plus a whole bunch of other things (I should be getting my degree from the University of Lunsford in about a year). The good news is we had a really great visit from Kristin Robbins from the El Pomar Foundation about that hush hush garden I was telling you all about earlier. The good news is I get to go to the Urban Tree Conference next Friday. The good news is I can print from my computer again. The good news is we got two new koi donated. That's old news but it is still good news. That is Big Shiny on the right and Big Jake in the middle.

All's Well

So it turned out the one thing I was missing last night was to reset the circuit for the pump. Which I did when I got in this morning. Problem solved. :)

I ran across a couple of pictures from the Riverfront Parkway opening. Here is me and Tyler.

And Richard and Lloyd.

Today was doing a little admin catch up but most exciting is the planning of a new garden. It is a little hush hush right now but I'll be posting pictures of the progression as things unfold.

The Watson Island cleanup is looking like it is going to be starting this month. The first step looks to be to remove some of the russian olive along the north channel. Again, I'll let you know more when I have more information. The planning session, or charrette, was held at the Gardens a week ago Monday. A lot of folks turned up but more were consulted in the weeks previously. There are a lot of folks that are going to be involved and the plan looks to be fairly comprehensive. It is really exciting to be a part of such a big project. For more info on the Tamarisk Coalition click here.

Temperature Alarm

Good morning everybody. It is 2am and I just got home from a nearly futile hour of troubleshooting in the greenhouses. That's right the low temperature alarm went off this morning and I got the call at 12:45. I had a feeling that was going to happen but I figured everything was ok since the last few nights everything had been copacetic. First thing I noticed is that the swamp cooler was still running. The Gift Store was really cold. So I shut that off. Then I went up the ladder to the boiler room to see what's what. The controller was calling for heat but the furnace wasn't turning on, the pump wasn't going. Nothing. It finally dawned on me to check the fuse boxes and low and behold the breakers were off for the pumps, thermostats and furnace. So I flipped them and they roared to life. What a sweet sound. So I stuck around and everything seemed fine so down the ladder I went into the greenhouses. I heard the fan going in the east greenhouse and thought "great!" So I went back into the butterfly house and waited for the hot water to make it to the radiotor in there. And I waited. Waited. And waited some more. Up the ladder I went and discovered silence. Everything had shut itself off. The furnace was still warm although the water temp was less than 80 degrees. The outdoor sensor light was on Good. But the furnace had turned off. Not so good. I fiddled with the manual pump but that didn't do anything. Hmm. The controller was still calling for heat. I had reset the night temperature and I'm not sure if that had anything to do with everything shutting off. The breakers hadn't flipped but I was about to. I'd done everything I could for now. The outside temperature wasn't going to go below 50 tonight both the butterflies and the plants would live through the night. According to the controller the temperature in both greenhouses had only dropped by three tenths of a a degree in the last hour. The temperature in the puparium was at 68 so the chrysalids would be fine too. I decided to call it a night and try again in the morning when I can talk to someone who call help me figure this whole mess out. I'll let you know how it all works out.