Excellent Autumn Day

We had another awesome day of weather with mild temperatures and some sunshine.  The sky was overcast a good portion of the day with a strong breeze but it was pleasant to be outside.  Above is one of our many displays for the upcoming Holiday Light Show (HLS).  Get tickets to our Taste of Chocolate (November 21) if you want to see the premiere lighting if this event (after dinner, chocolate and entertainment of course!).  Directly below is just some of the many power connections we need to make for the scale of this event which has increased with a route expansion, additional lights and plenty of new twists.  As has become typical on Thursdays, we had a strong volunteer turnout and our grounds staff kept busy with more HLS preparations.

 

Our volunteers accomplished a lot of work today and the continued warm weather certainly helped our turnout.  Above are Rollie (left) and Dr. Gredler out mowing.  I’m not sure why they took this unauthorized break to chit chat but I’ll probably let it go….  Further below are more of our wonderful volunteers but a big thank you to Rollie, Dr. Gredler, Bonnie, Peg, Kathy, Eva, Dave, Hal, Doris, Shirley, Sandi, Joe, Gary, Dick H., Ron P., Pat M., Ron Y., Jim D., Lisa I. and many others.  Activities included putting up deer fencing, carpentry, collecting leaves and much more.

Eva
Dave and Kathy
Sandi
Peg (left) and Bonnie
Joe (left) and Gary
Hal and Doris
Nice shot of Kris Koch, our Education Coordinator, who will finish at RBG on Nov. 12 (we’ll miss her!)

Our grounds staff had a great day too.  Nice shot of our weeping ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba ‘Pendula’) with some fall color this morning.  Big John had a lot of progress with putting out displays for the HLS and had lots of other tasks to accomplish.  Larry H. continued putting up lights and helped me run cords as well.  Bob K. had some HLS tasks as well and his background as an electrician has been very helpful!  We had a great day.

‘October Skies’ aromatic aster (Aster oblongifolius) still blooming – perennial
fall color on oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) – woody shrub
vivid gold fall color on ‘Princeton Gold’ Norway maple (Acer platanoides)
‘Autumn Indigo’ monkshood (Aconitum carmichaelii) still going! – perennial
fall color on Golden Raindrops crabapple (Malus ‘Schmidtcutleaf’)