Sooooo Much To Do

There is sooo much to do. More trees being planted. Well, rearranged. Yeah, for most people rearranging usually involves some cut flowers and a vase. For me it involves cottonwood trees and an amphitheater.

The folks from the Career Center planted our cute little sequoia today. It was a pretty big job. The ground was really hard. When I saw them last they were taking turns with the pick axe. By the time I left, the sequoia was in the ground looking pretty happy.

Of course there are greenhouse woes but more importantly are greenhouse plants! Yes 21 plus 1 bonus plant came today for the butterfly house. We have lots of nectar sources now to keep the butterflies fat and happy. I can hardly wait to see how a fat butterfly flies.

We are getting closer and closer to breaking ground on the new garden. It is very exciting! And speaking of exciting I can't believe I haven't exclaimed over the beautiful tree that is flowering in the greenhouse right now. What? You want to know the name of it? Uh, er, it ummm escapes me right now but I know it as the-tree-we've-been-thinking-about-cutting-down-for-the-last-year-because-it-has-been-looking-so-sickly. It has these crazy pink blooms that kind of look like spider lilies. Ok. I'll look it up tomorrow and give you its "real" name.

We also got to do a little top secret spy stuff that I obviously can't tell you about or else I'd have to kill you.

Most thrilling of all for me, is that Gary, Eddie and Karen came out and went on an afternoon hunt for the 220 electrical line which so far has been eluding us. In the process they have taken a lot of mystery out of the amphitheater for me. Which is ok. I don't need any mystery in the amphitheater.

Watch The Sparks Fly!

It is true confession time. I confess. One of my favorite tv shows is Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel. I am so jealous of Mike Rowe. For those of you who aren't familiar, the whole premise of the show is to have this guy go all over the United States doing all sorts of jobs most of us wouldn't want to have like sewer repair or roughnecking or shearing sheep or cutting down palm trees or shrimping. The thing I get so jealous over is that he gets to do all these different things. I think that is why I like my job so much. I get to learn about all kinds of things like xeric plants and tropical plants and koi and butterflies and boiler systems and pond systems and conservation and tree spades and WELDING! That's right ladies and gents, the east gate came off of its hinges and our fantastic neighbors over at Elam's sent over one of their welders to help out. And just look! Here he is in action.

Those welders, they really know how to make the sparks fly! But seriously, it was cool seeing the gate get put back together with just a little electricity and metal. It kinda made this week seem sort of ho-hum. I mean we've been planting trees and releasing the butterflies and getting the greenhouses fixed and well, I think it has been a week to make Mike Rowe jealous and it is only Tuesday.

Great Greenhouse Batman! It's Clean!

Ginny, Sharon and Kevin did a fabulous job cleaning out the potting shed. Why we might be able to actually use it as a potting shed!

And while I still may be having problems with the mister system, it is working and creating lovely, romantic, mysterious effects.

Popular Demand

It seems the public is clamoring for news on the Gardens. I'm here to oblige.

It has been really busy the last week or so. WD Yards came out and blew out our irrigation lines. THANK YOU! They also explained a couple of mysteries in the irrigation system. Any of you off season irrigation guys who are looking for a challenge, stop by they Gardens. I've got one for you.

I'd just like to say. No, they aren't dead. The city has been giving us some lovely trees and for some reason people are wondering why I'm putting dead trees in. Ummm. There are some trees, called deciduous, that have their leaves fall off in the autumn. They are supposed to have no leaves. Sheesh. We have plenty of evergreens too. And thanks to the new trees and the Career Center kids the amphitheater has never looked better.

The Japanese Garden is coming right along and we should start work on it in a couple of weeks. It is very exciting. Stop by the office and have a look at our plan. I'm always open to comment.

We'll be getting some nectar sources into the butterfly house on Tuesday so things will start to fill in there soon.

I'm trying an experiment on keeping the pond going over the winter. Today is a nice cold day to test the moving water doesn't freeze theory.

I'm off to the Gardens for another big day. I'll keep you posted. :)

What Fun!

I'm sure "What fun!" is what Tyler is saying about digging up the irrigation lines on Friday. He and Richard and Lloyd did a fantastic job of fixing my mistake. I have the best volunteers in the world.

Here's a little TNT, Tom and Tony, City Arborists who are currently removing a stump from behind the amphitheater.

The results of a little TNT in the International Garden. They'll be grinding down the stump later in the winter. You know. On a slow day.

And speaking of winter, here is a lovely winter fat. Something we'll all be seeing way too much of after Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners for sure.

And on the newsy side, the misters are indeed working in the greenhouses for all of you who were worried about that. And yes, the "Japanese Garden" is coming along just great. Thank you for asking. I should have a plant list ready to post soon.

There were the greatest kids from Delta visiting the WCBG the last two days. I'm sorry I didn't get a sound clip of them doing their wolf cry. It was fantastic.

The Watson Island cleanup is going really well. Take a stroll on the island and see for yourself.

Technical Difficulties

I know, I know, it has been almost a week. But I've been beleaguered by technology. First the camera, next the internet connection. Hopefully it will all be resolved soon. In the meantime, there have been all kinds of excitement happening at the Gardens. Monday was a typical catch-up day, I actually got a ton of paperwork done and some good research on nectar sources for our butterflies. Tuesday was meeting day. But in the greenhouse we saw nature in action. Those of you who are a little more sensitive may want to skip this part and head on down to the next picture. There we were in the greenhouses admiring the butterflies when "Hey! Look at this! A spider is eating one of the butterflies!" And sure enough it was. I wish they'd just stick to a steady diet of ghost ants and do us all a favor but spiders have a mind of their own. Well, maybe a nerve or two or their own. The phone camera just doesn't do it justice. Poor little julia.

So, on to today. Today was a great day! Why? Because the first bunch of trees from the City came today. I love the City. They are donating a lot of trees to us. Not these little things either. Nice big evergreens. Shade trees. A few ornamentals. Fabulous trees. Well Tom and Willy started planting them today. I even got to dig a hole for one. Yeah, that is me with my perfect tree hole.

So what I'm not showing is the irrigation line I cut through. Ooops. Tomorrow I get to find out how to repair an irrigation line. See you then.

Cacti

Donna and Kathleen did some fabulous work on the cacti today just look.

Sometimes it pays to be the runt. Take a gander at this banana yucca. Mama and one pup were unceremoniously removed but the one left behind looks just great.

So, I hear that the Chinle Cactus and Succulent Club is the only group that espaliers their cacti. I'm so glad they do. Isn't this cholla beautiful?

OK. It just cracked me up that we have cholla, crabapple and that awful fragmites all within 10 feet of each other. I didn't intend for the telephone pole to be the focus but I find it poetic with its upright manner and symetrical crossbar, let alone the fact that it isn't underground yet: we still have our utilities sprouting up on poles.

On the non-pictorial side I learned an awful lot about the greenhouse today from Scott. I won't bore you with the details but you'll notice the happy butterflies and blooming plants in the greenhouse.

The other exciting thing is Niki's plan for our holiday decorations. I know you may be thinking it is a little early but she has been working on them since September. It promises to be a really nice display. You'll see, in December, but you'll see. ;)