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Wednesday Nite at the Lab. >> Welcome, everyone, to
I work here at the UW Madison Biotechnology Center.
I also work for UW Extension
behalf of those folks and our other co-organizers, Wisconsin
Public Television, the Wisconsin
Science Alliance here at Alumni Association, and the
to Wednesday Nite at the Lab. UWWe do this every Wednesdayg
night, 50 times a year. Tonight, it's my pleasure
to introduce to you Ed Lyon.
Centennial Gardens here in He's director of the Allen
position he has held since 2008. Madison at UW-Madison, a
Botanic Garden, the Olbrich HeBotanical Gardens, and theo
Rotary Botanical Gardens. Through Spellbound Gardening--
excuse me, through Spellbound Garden Writing and Consultation,
he writes and speaks for both public and professional
audiences across the Midwest. He currently writes the "Ask the
Expert" column for Wisconsin
feature articles and a regular as
Wisconsin for Chicagoland Gardening, in addition to regional reotheron southern
feature articles. He has just launched a project
to author a book on gardening in the Midwest, which will
specialize on how to do it
[LAUGHTER] without any water.
served as the keynote speaker for many gardening conferences.
He delights in focusing on
gardening. regional flare and flavors in
gardener with dirt under his Most importantly, he's an avid
This is the second talk that Ed has given to Wednesday Nite at
the Lab.
four years ago. ItWe get to see about thealk
evolution and future direction
Please join me in welcoming Ed of Allen Centennial Gardens.
[APPLAUSE] to Wednesday Nite at the Lab.
I have to find my keys on here. I'm a clicker guy and apparently
I have to use keys. So we'll see how this works.
It's kind of funny, as Tom said,
I think is the most important thone, and that is I'm an avidhy
gardener, but what was rather amusing is I gave that talk to a
large group of about 300 master gardeners this winter and they
actually checked my fingernails.
And, of course, in the winter, [LAUGHTER]
under the nails, so I'm not sure I really didn't have dirt
anything else I said in that they felt they should believe
And I don't know about gardening talk.
I don't think it's possible. without water.
matter of a couple of hours ago from a week-long conference in
Boston and Maine, and I'll tell you, it was very difficult to
leave those two areas and come
stress that we are going back to the heat and the water
I did take a quick walk through the gardens since I have not
been here for a week, and any of
can only go so long through you conditions like this.w you
No matter how much water you put
stress. And they're really starting to
show it.
water and get those plants At least we have the ability to
That may not be the ideal that through.
continue, but certainly there are a lot of other people out
there, including our farmers, who don't have the same
abilities.
because it's going to be a very tough year for a lot of people.
We are going through an awful lot of water.
I think my largest bill at home this year will certainly be the
water bill. But anyway, four years ago, in
fact July 1st was my fourth anniversary, I took the position
at Allen Centennial Gardens.
I had actually gone back and got It was coming back home for me.
horticulture at 40 years old my master's degree in
So I considered it a return fhome.W.
And at that time, Tom asked me
director, my vision, direction, to for the gardens would be. new
Did anybody actually happen to
We've got one person anyways. So then we chatted the other day
in the gardens, and he says how would you like to come back and
tell people where it's all gone in four years.
In the perspective of progress
is a relatively short time in botanic gardens, four years
Most of the time we do master plans or strategic planning, we
look at 10, 15, or 20 years.
be fun. BIt also gives me the chance tod
sort of sit down and look at
wanted to? what did we accomplish that we
What have we changed our minds What didn't we?
What types of things that have on?
thinking about at the time? So, what I did is I took that
presentation that I did in 2008 and you're going to see some of
the very, well, one person is going to see some of the very
same slides.
that time, and then I'll show you sort of the evolution then.t
Let's see if this is the one I
Yes. want.
talk talking a little bit about Anyways, my background.that last
Like I said, this was actually a
I came back and got my graduate second degree.for me.
I was 40 years old at the time. Do the math.
You can see I'm getting fairly
But I did get my master's in old there.
I have been in public garden horticulture here.
Botanic. administration since Chicago
for Olbrich. I was the director of education
for four years before coming I ran Rotary Botanical Gardens
Again, you heard in the biography, I lecture and
instruct. I write for professional and
public audiences. A 2012 update, now I'm not only
writing this regional report and
Chicagoland Gardening, feature articles for
for Wisconsin. but a brand new magazine
it. Publishing, as you all know, iso
in turmoil right now. So if we want a gardening
magazine for our state, the best
subscribe to it. way we can support that is to
Expert" contributor. But I am the regular "Ask the
that. IIt's interesting writing for
magazines.
issue. I just did the November/December
that we're under right now. I had to come up with questions
for November/December.
very pleased about, Timber But the most recent news I'm
predominate publisher of Press, which is right now the
to write a book on gardening in gardeningthe Midwest. asked me
I'm very pleased. Actually, I shouldn't say that.
We haven't signed a contract
I just submitted an outline, but yet.
fruition. hopOne more thing to get to
accomplished. And actually, my story is rather
interesting.
actually came back with the intention I was going to get a
PhD and then teach in an
And once I started work, academic setting.
director of Allen Centennial Dr. Dennis Stimart was the
He was my graduate adviser, and I started working with him
behind the scenes at the
In fact, one summer I was the rock garden intern.
And that's when I realized that my real passion was going to be
public garden work. I got to work with all age
levels, children, adults, teenagers, various ages.
I just really fell in love with that.
I finished with my master's and then moved down to Chicago
Botanic and made the progression
But then was really pleased that that we were talking about.
doing that I was able to come in back to Allen Centennialof
Gardens.
little garden were near and dear Both the university and that
So that was a really good thing tofor me.rt.
As I said, I felt like I had
Just a little bit, we're not come back home.
went through fairly extensively gothe history of the gardens.e I
We're not going to do that
I do many talks on the history tonight.
groups that want those talks, ofcertainly get a hold of me.ve
But it is a little bit important
part of that because that's also just to know that the house is
things that are happening to the part of the update, some of the
I think most of you know that that house was built to house
the very first dean of
It was built to his agrispecifications.enry.
In fact, if you know Victorian
of styles that are all architecture, there's a number
ornate house. iWell over a hundred years old.l
Was built in 1896.
centerpiece of the gardens, I Athink most of you know.e
Four deans of agriculture lived in the house.
EB Fred was the last dean.
agriculture, they asked him to After two years of being dean of
that role. be president, and he took on
he became president he asked It was interesting in that when
rather than moving into a tpresident's residence, whiche
they did. And, actually, EB and Rosa lived
out their lives in the house. And they were the last staff to
live in the house because by the
providing housing for the deans. early '80s they were no longer
this is an old slide because it says now houses the Ag Research
Station, CALS Conference
And that's what it did right up Servuntil last year.aff.
In '84 it was placed on the National Register of Historic
Places. That was a result of a project
of a landscape architect
open to the public because it studewas office space.t been
Now, 2012, how many of you
over there? noticed therNobody?ngs going on
You haven't noticed what's going
All right. on over there?
us out. I'm temporarily housed in a very
small room in a dorm. The house has been under
renovation. In fact, at the time they moved
us out they told us that the
May of 2012. project was going to be done
Any of us that know anything Not that I believed that.
saw the extensive plans that about construction and if you
was awfully optimistic. t>> I think you're confusing us
because August 2012 is after. >> Oh, I'm sorry.
It should have been August of 2011.
Yep, I think I confuse myself by starting out with 2012.
It was August of 2011.
year. They've been working on it for
almost a year.
of Sustainability. It will house a new Department
moved up to Arlington. The Ag Research Stations were
over in Humphrey Hall. CALS Conference Services are now
The only groups that will move They will not move back.
completed is the Department of back in the house when it is
Centennial Gardens. So if you've noticed all of the
work that's going on at the house, that is what is
happening.
brides, as you can imagine, but Itwe manage to make everythingr
work out for them as well.
in 2008. This is something that I had up
knew what our mission was. A lot of people I don't think
mission statement. We do have a mission and a
as an outdoor classroom. Our primary mission is to serve
particularly to horticulture That would make a lot of sense,
But anybody that's a student and students but also LA students.
certainly have a variety of different students that will use
the gardens.
addition to a teaching garden. It is a public garden in
from dawn to dusk at no fee to We're open all year, 365 days,
We have been available for anybody who wants to come in.
One of the things when I'm weddings, other events.
the gardens that I think is the biggest surprise, especially to
our community who either knows
learning about the gardens, is about the gardens or they're
All of our operations, including we are 100% self-funded.
entirely self-funded. So there's not a dime of state
taxpayer dollars or university
operations of the gardens. dollars that go into the
challenge is our location on Now, where that makes it a real
Obviously, the public all thinks, well they don't need any
money because the university
they need. supplies them with everything
location makes it a little bit So being in that type of
fund-raise than many other more difficult for us to
there. not-for-profit gardens out
and you're looking at him. There's one full-time employee,
We do have student labor. It doesn't look like this picked
up all of the slide, but then the balance are volunteers.
Students, these are some of our past students.
Update for 2012 is I did have to
We used to have four interns. I did have to cut back to three
this year.
we would have liked for the We havefull-time interns.g that
We always hate to see that
people that are getting valuable happen because these are young
But these are the three young ladies that when you come over
this year have been exceptional students and are spending their
summer here gaining valuable
And then, of course, our experience in the gardens.
Again, this is a slide that I put in in 2008.
This is still, here's 2012, this
part of the labor force in the is still the really valuable
This is the reason that we're able to manage those two and a
half acres and provide them free
In fact, one of the volunteers to everybody.
tonight. is sitting in the audience
standing in the back. So see if you can identify him
in the audience.
like clockwork. TomWe have some wonderfulust
volunteers, and the gardens would not be what they are
without their assistance. The other thing that I do like
to point out, almost every
very heavy on volunteerism. And I say ours are very special
volunteers because they have the
relate to and that's parking on additional ccampus.e you can all
[LAUGHTER]
for our volunteers. They have to use meters and do
anything that the public would
So you can imagine that to go through those kinds of hoops in
addition to anything else a volunteer has to do, that makes
them really, really dedicated,
that. When I tell people it's two and
a half acres, we have 26
ones that we identify as individual gardens, at least
That's pretty amazing. individual gardens.
people who didn't know me and I Thewas explaining about thet,
gardens, and I said we've got 26
half acres, they just couldn't gardens within the two and a
That's a lot to put in that cosmall space.t.
I'm sure all of you are familiar
those beautiful intimate spaces. with the gardens and know all
hitting our 20th year. Now, when I arrived, we were
And you get 20 years into a public garden or anything.
similar, this is when things
So I got to inherit all the things that were falling apart,
which is typical. I knew very well that that's
what I would walk in to.
good four years, five years, to get through everything that is
structural and rejuvenating gardens.
And I tell everybody I'll be
I really can then concentrate on glad when that's over, and what
But there's two different things are plants.
look at. that a garden that age has to
existing gardens. OAs you can imagine, if thosee
gardens hadn't changed in 20
you'd have to rejuvenate. They might become overgrown.
Maybe the plant materials,
improved cultivars come out, we want to make sure you have the
newest and the latest.
that. SAnd one of the big problems we
have that many other places have, believe it or not, two and
a half acres in an urban setting
Whether it's insects, whether it's diseases, and you know many
of them, and, believe it or not,
the gardens. even garlic mustard we have at
like that, and I'll show you the So when you start having issues
with field bindweed and thistles, then there are times
when you just have to step back and start over again or you're
just dealing with those problems
Just some examples of some of the gardens we've rejuvenated I
pretty much have done something with almost every one to this
point.
first we worked on. That had gotten infested with a
lot of weeds, needed updates in the irises, so we did that.
And the last two years, the irises have been absolutely
spectacular.
divide again. So that's pretty good for only
two years in the ground.
the borders, after 20 years, The English perennial garden,
I was going to go in and simply divide plant materials down as
you would in borders of that
had to put in a new irrigation nature, but you'll see we also
And I wanted water in the sEnglish garden, water boxes..
There were no valves in there.
to do that they had to dig along So they put two in, but in order
you have to remove all those just inside the borders and said
Well, I said if we're going to plants.
all of them and completely remove the front, we'll remove
Last year was the first year, and this is what it looked like
after one season of the new plantings.
Now, we did take some plants
divide out, and put back in. that had already been in there,
there. So you'll see a little height in
already established and we put That's from plants that were
The lower picture is a little bit deceiving.
There's not two gazebos there.
side so you can see. I just put two pictures side by
can see from spring all the way Bup until just about a coupleu
weeks ago when I took those pictures how quickly it's all
grown back in again, looking
The Victorian garden, the exterior portion of the
Victorian garden used to be only
I extended that to go 38 feet down the north direction and
then up this way, the south direction, a couple of years
ago.
garden you had to balance those I beds on either side of then
gates, not just have them on the
Also allowed us to expand our bulb display.
But then this year we've felt that all of that exterior
ground, there's not good turf in
It's that strip that nobody wants to deal with.
So we actually have dug the whole thing up now, and if you
go over there, you'll see.
on the observatory side. We're doing perennial plantings
And, again, this is a year into it after we expanded those beds.
And it just looks so much more
the front instead of walking lush and full all the way across
represents grass and is really down through and seeing a poorly
The rock garden, we tell people we have the finest rock garden
in the Midwest, and it probably is one of the best rock gardens
in the country. And, believe me, I've been to
enough of them to know that.
that good. And there's reasons that it is
Gabelman, Buck was a professor Originally, Buck and Alberta
you probably knew him, they took of horticulture here, many of
managing that garden. After they stopped, Ed Glover,
you'll see his picture in here, who has been president of the
Wisconsin-Illinois Rock Garden
He's been doing it for about Society, he took it on.
extraordinary. 10 years now, and it's
He parks in Steenbock. He actually works in oncology.
He stops in every day. I see him every day.
dedication from a volunteer. If you can imagine that kind of
over there with one of the He manages, there he is bent
He's the one who has, in those interns.
through every area of that rock 10 years hgarden.bably been
Put in the tufa garden area.
upper portion that you can see We've just last fall redid the
We redid the moraine. Two years ago as a student
project we built this crevice garden.
It went over so well that this
So on the right you see the new expanded version of that.
That's one of the most popular
So, again, it's a volunteer who really helps us do it.
The woodland garden, this is the
it's supposed to be for native Wisconsin Woodland Garden, and
And when I came it was heavily Wisconsin woodland plants.
One of the worst is the Adenophora, the common ladybell,
many of you probably have in
You know how noxious that plant can be, particularly since it's
not a native. We had all kinds of plants, and
even native plants, that were noxious like Virginia waterleaf
and lily of the valley. You have no idea, well maybe you
do if you've tried it, but you
kill lily of the valley, and we hahad to get that stuff out to
because it is not a Wisconsin native plant.
The other issue is that area is so dark and so horrendously dry
and it had been years and years and years without any addition
of compost, and a good woodland garden should have compost added
every single year.
tried to do is we tried to just go through and manage and pull
and control weeds.
And I felt so guilty because It wasn't working.
volunteers in there to pull out basically the weeds they had
only pulled the week before.
going to work, and we've tried So, finally, I said this isn't
in the gardens, but this is one area I said we have to kill offn
all of these invasives and
That's what we did. There you can see a lot of the
plants in there, most of those
might be a native plant that's are not native plants or they
area. trSo we cleaned it all out.le
We brought in enormous amounts
Some of the compost in there was of compost.
woodlands. specially formulated for
We brought in enormous amounts You can see the plant materials.
We've been doing that for two years and putting in the
compost.
us tonight you'll see 15 yards In fact, if you walk over with
now waiting for me to come back. of compost in the driveway right
This is a very hard kind of And garden to develop.gle.
It's so dry, it's so dark that
lose a lot of plants in the estaestablishment process. you
So that's still an ongoing
This was pictured this year. project.
pictures the dryness and I think you can even see in the
I think I might even have to darkness.
to get a little more light in there because it is that dark.
This was an interesting one.
the picture I showed of the The ushady annual garden.r was
There's not an annual in there. I think in order to save money,
we spend roughly $15,000 a year on annuals.
That's a large amount of money
perennials. Well, I had a couple of issues
with that.
that sits right there that says One shady annual garden.tone
So we weren't doing what the
And, secondly, if people came in donor asked us to do.
then they were mistaken. and thought those were annuals,
education. So that's not very good for
expanded, if you've been over, So we have changed, in fact it's
entire area under the gingko as the gingko continues to widen
out.
annuals. And it is now entirely all
people really love because it's In fextremely colorful.that
Again, this is cutting some things off.
That's the daylily garden.
because when we did the new irrigation system they had to
put that obnoxious looking pump there, and so that changed some
things around.
The conifer garden is our Butproject this year.e.
Now, one, many of the conifers
homeowner is going to use today. are much larger than the average
We really want to do more of the We have smaller yards.
So it's not really reflecting dwathat smaller landscape.rs.
But this was a garden that also got heavily infested with
thistle and field bindweed. It's been very difficult to
eradicate.
again. We had to do the same thing
that we could save and went in, and we've spent actually so fars
a year and a half hitting those particular weeds in order to get
rid of them.
It can be a time consuming It's not a one shot deal.
Here's where we were starting to process.
This is what it looked like this do that last fall.
If you walk over, you'll see spring.
but this summer that will be we're still hitting some weeds,
our projects that we're going to finished and that will be one of
I redid the entrance garden. be doing.
emphasis on bulbs. That's now going to have an
And this is very important So it'll start with the early.
walk in. garden, I think, when you first
it'll start with all your spring It needs to be very colorful, so
Your minor bulbs, your daffodils bulbs that you can expect.
It won't have tulips. And then it then goes into
alliums, which are your really
go from that point when all the other bulbs have finished butu
your annuals haven't started
The alliums were quite lovely this year.
It then transitions into lilies,
lilies into dahlias which will my favorite bulbs, and then the
This, as many of you may know, take you right up until winter.
Eventually, that wasn't working. started as a bog garden.
It wasn't a bog. The liner was leaking.
they put a bunch of plants in Sthere and called it Wisconsind
Wildflower Garden.
a lot of Wisconsin wildflowers Unfortunately, it happened to be
invasive to the rest of the that, aggarden.re fairly
We're finding Indian plantain and fireweed and many of the
plants growing in other areas.
from the gazebo right over that Angarden, and it didn't fit.e
It had all these sort of big, large prairie-type plants stuck
right in the middle, and a lot
that view across the sight line. of people just didn't comprehend
having two and a half acres is So one of the issues with only
So if we want to do something new, some new type of focus we
think is important, we can't
We have to find another area and expand out into a new area.
relevant use of the space and say ischange it over.e most
So we want to do a
currently writing a grant that sustainability garden, and I'm
August 1 for this. has to be submitted by
are doing a plan for it. Landscape architecture students
boardwalk over the top of this The goal is we're going to put a
We'll come in from three points so ito a center circle withwalk.
interpretation in the center
You'll be able to look down on a circle.
gravel gardens that are relatively new to the country
right now, and an alternative lawn meadow type garden.
And so we'll be looking for funding for that through grants
and hopefully maybe some donors and many more.
Like I said, within my first
garden will have been touched in five years I think every single
Now, here was the really big some way in renovations.
start have structural repairs. one, and that is in 20 years you
We had walls coming apart, And we had some major ones.
In fact, we still have a fair number that we're going to have
to tackle.
very worst, and I don't know if Buyou were going through thee
gardens, this wall was coming apart.
Certainly that path with the
the separation of the bricks. raAnd in fact, up in the upperth
right corner, I had decided that
this work in the spring, and by spring the wall had even caved
in. So we didn't even have any
choice by that time, but we had already had it set to go.
And this is the work that we
It was major. Took many months.
It was a $55,000 project to completely rebuild these walls,
but they've been built in such a
not 20 years. wAnd, again, when it comes to,
funding, nobody wants to donate to repairs.
This money has to come out of the endowment money.
People want to put their name on
They don't want to put their a new project.
rebuilt. name on something that's been
to do that, but it turned out So that's really well.n we have
Beautifully done. We're glad we did it.
So some things we do ourselves
The west walk, the bricks were just to save that kind of money.
Again, that walk was getting coming apart.
I had one of the interns, her boyfriend had just quit a job
where, for two years, he had
brick. worked for a company laying
he said I will direct your And he says for a good reference
And I said, all right, we'll do stuit.ts.
We had an estimate of $12,000 to
He directed the other students do the job.
job because if you look at that topath there are a number ofll
squares and every square shows a
They pulled all of them up, relaid them down in those exact.
same patterns, block after
cost of $1,000 to us. blAnd we all agree that by the a
time they got done they had actually done a better path than
was there originally. It was an amazing process.
I was very proud of them, and they also left, again, with a
new skill they could take with
As I said, the entire water system started leaking
everywhere after digging down.
sidewalks. It was four feet under
sidewalks, I said this is And afteridiculous.igging up
We'll dig one area, fix the leak, and then the next thing
you know it's springing up
And so we realized the whole farther along.
So the entire water system of the gardens got replaced two
Novembers ago.
certainly a donor doesn't step So, again, another cost that
that. Painting and staining, we did
that entire pergola ourselves.
did most of it. Amazing the amount of work that
we do so that we can save money for the gardens.
That would have been, again, a
hire somebody to come in and do. very, very expensive project to
10 to 12 years. One of my students took it on to
do the donor arbor. She did that all herself.
We did the bridge, and I can't
that was. You can see in the pictures we
did it in a very, very hot
God bless my interns and my volunteers.
They didn't complain a bit. And we sanded, and we brushed,
and we pressure-washed, and we
put two coats of paint on, stained, and we primed, and we
In fact, we completely took the deck of it from paint to stain,.
and that's no easy process
come off. bAnd this is what it looks likeo
as a result.
dollars doing it ourselves. And then, of course, I'm like,
oh, wow, I really like the color
volunteers and interns are of the bridge, and my poor
we had to paint all the benches. rolling their eyes because then
We did that all in the same Get that colyear. the garden.
We've added sculptures to the gardens.
Our wonderful hortisculpture. I hope you all, everybody
comments on that when they walk through the pergola, which was a
gift from Dick Moll for his wife
We added the ruins columns, our little mini Stonehenge, we did
that at our own expense just to get some consistency in those
two beds. And what about projects that
weren't even on our radar?
This was the house. This has changed enormously the
things we're doing this year. We've had to dig up the entire
herb garden.
We have lost the space That's been moved.
In fact, they're still supposed to come in and dig around it and
put in drainage tile. So we've just removed all the
plants out, so it's limited our space.
Thus, our theme this year,
We moved the, the brochure rack. limited space gardening.
changes that we're working It's caused a lot of different
you've all seen all this work around thigoing on.nd I'm sure
And then in back of us right now
service gate. In fact, when the phase two of
the Lakeshore dorm project is done, I won't be able to get
trucks back in there anymore. So we now have to figure out how
mulches and things in quantity
because they won't be able to whave access to the back.s
They just put in a new boss shelter.
That kind of took up some space on the exterior of the gardens.
And they came through and replaced all the columns.
This I was very pleased about because they were falling apart.
In fact, look at them, they just
beautiful. finished them and they're
severely. In 2008 I told you some of the
things that we were looking at
that were coming up. were new trends and concerns
I'll just briefly review. Right up until 2005, gardening
was the number one recreational activity in America.
It started to reverse itself in 2005.
It's been on a very rapid decline since.
Our green industry is hurting big time.
The rose industry is almost non-existent right now.
A lot of things that have been
primary audience and gardener hwere baby boomers and older at
that time.
And we were the folks that were predominately gardening,
basically because we had some kind of background in it.
A mother or grandmother who did vegetable gardening, maybe
agronomic background, and we
about the time we hit our 30s stand 40s in our own homeing
landscapes. But we're being followed by the
X and Y generation, and these were the kids that moved out of
the house before we got interested in gardening.
So they don't have that same
attachment, that we did. sort of attachment, family
Both couples probably were They didn't experience that.
home landscape, and their woremphasis is spending timeon a
together as family. So this is, in fact, and they're
called this, and not in a derogatory way, by the green
industry is the do it for me
rather have landscaping services generation because they would
a very clean, simple landscape, comso they have more time fore,
themselves and the family.
interested in English perennial borders and ponds and streams in
their backyards.
they interested in. And I talked about this in 2008,
and you all know because you
And Madison is right on the cusp live in Madison.
farmers markets, but what this of all of these things with our
regionalism, organics, green group is interested is
heirlooms, all of these types of concerns, quality of product,
And it's understandable. things, and you can see that.
a vegetable gardener. I staI didn't even get intoer as
ornamental gardening until I was
So, we think that the way to in my 30s.
is the same way that we got started: showing people how you
can grow, and we'll show you a
limited spaces. lI told in 2008 gardening inn
small spaces are in, colossal gardens or landscapes are out.
So what I've done is many of our
I've put paths through them so larger beds I've broken down.
people can relate to them and understand how to plant in those
smaller spaces, and you don't need the vast acreage in order
to do that. A boom without bloom, we call
it, foliage so that you don't have to rely on that flower
throughout the season.
We've been doing it a lot. So we try to show that as well.
demonstration of how you could That entire bed, there was a
There's no flower in there do color entirely in foliage.
So that's one of the things you'll have seen that we've been
approaching.
is in, safe is out. That's good because I happen to
like color, I happen to like
If you go over this year, you'll adventurism.
So we try to do things that are fun, interesting, and this was
our last year color your world
That actually represented the color wheel, and everybody
really enjoyed that.
with what we're doing as well. So we try to have a lot of fun
gardening is replacing things Andlike our public garden'sual
extension where we used to get
Now everybody's getting their information off the Internet.
And we've got a long ways to be able to catch up to that.
I don't have the staff, but we
interpretation we have. aWe finally pulled together
through donations from garden clubs and other annual donations
the $25,000 that it took for
You can't imagine how many professional labeling system.
complain you don't have good people will come through and
They don't understand how expensive good permanent
professional labels are.
We have a self-guided brochure We're doing more brochures.
I completely redid the website. We are now on Facebook.
We're doing social networking.
doing it, I have found Facebook is generating all the audience
to the website. It's pretty amazing.
So we're trying to use some of
Pot-scaping, containers, has that as well.
However, we're not going been really big.
In fact, we've reduced the big time.
we have. number of ornamental containers
labor-intensive. They're extremely
to do things with less labor, Wless water, but we're doing aw
lot more in raised beds showing people how to do mixed-use
garden, limited space gardening,
maybe more practical. If you're going to have to go
out there and water that
maybe it should also be giving container twice a day, then
Hip to be homegrown, this is all you something back as well.
This whole new term: locavore. about the fresh produce.
as they can from locally grown People who want to eat as much
our kitchen garden. WeIt encompasses the entireed
terrace this year.
you can imagine. Every kind of raised bed
gardening to show people how you All different forms of vertical
We had a family fun day in May can grow up, take less space.
500 people came through. on a Saturday.
through and enjoyed looking at You could tell they wandered
garden. I stood in that spot from 10:00
to 2:00 without a break.
were asking all of the That's where all the families
This is what they're interested quein.ons.
We've got a lasagna garden. This is really what the younger
generation is interested in.
The issue of turf in America. AnThe water it takes, thee.
pollution that it creates.
how much pollution a two-cycle Just look at the information on
the soils. engine creates, the toxicity of
lawns now are 100% organic. We hWe mow them higher. our
By mowing them higher, that completely takes care of the
weeds.
their lawns is they're mowing Tthe turf down too short so itn
can't out compete the weeds,
Everybody in the last two years has been coming in and saying
what are you using to kill all
And I'm like, we're not using anything.?
And we don't have all the weeds.
raise up their lawnmower. But try to [LAUGHTER]nvinced to
It's next to impossible.
They're being released faster than ever at a very rapid rate.
So we're trying to get these
can into the gardens so people plant materials as much as we
And if you walk through in the can see them.
thousands, well, hundreds of spring and see our thousands and
in them, you'll know what I'm flats witalking about.f plants
The amount of plants that we put
get some additions in where in every yenecessary.p trying to
That crevice garden, that's the early one, is an example of some
of the additions we do. Here's a list of things I had as
a goal. None of these things were being
done. We need to raise more money
beyond the endowment. We can't keep robbing the
endowment to do these structural
So these are the things I said repairs.
Well, I'm writing my first grant we need to do.
It took three years. this year.
Not ready for a capital campaign I'm writing my first grant.
The foundation will help us with yet.
But we've been doing the new that.
demonstrations as you just saw. Friends of the Garden, I'm
pleased to announce we just started that this year.
We have a steering committee. We will be doing fund raising
events starting next year.
finally have that off the ground, so that fulfills that
fund-raising activities in the
We'll see that happening now garden.
Anybody interested in joining thatus, look at the website.up.
Certainly we can use more people.
I said in 2008 we want to increase educational
opportunities.
a lot of the hands-on things we At this polove to do.ll can't do
We simply don't have the staff
But, as you saw, we're to do it.
We are doing a theme every year, increasing our interpretation.
everybody in every year to see and that theme is to bring
different. what we're doing that's
then we make the theme We do your seasonal plants, but
So in 2009 it was ornamental educational.
We showed people how you could, all those gorgeous beds that you
see there, every single plant in
And people learned how they could do that and be just as
beautiful as if they were all ornamental plants.
We took that a step further in
nine categories of plants that 2010, broke it out into eight or
So, again, people didn't realize had multiple purpose.
beverages and teas out of and all the various things that we
could show them there.
and, again, when we're teaching Lasdesign, there's terms liked,
analogous and complementary and monochromatic, and our gardeners
are confused. What does this mean?
We showed bed by bed what those terms meant.
And then this year we were
It was going to be paint your forced garden.is one.
I was going to use paintings as inspiration for beds, but we
kept losing more and more space so I didn't feel I could do that
very effectively. I'm going to wait to do that
one.
We're doing all this limited And I said, you know what?
garden and we actually are space gardening in the vegetable
space this year, so it became more with less limited space
gardening.
education out there. And again, we're getting that
have in our vegetables, they Every one of the signs that we
Not only does it tell you what were all heirlooms.
bit of history about that they arheirloom as well. little
And that's all on the website.
sustainability issues. Addressing new needs, the
But one of the things I'd like We're doing that.
so us getting into is tohorticultural therapy and or
healing gardens.
10 years now and of real strong This has beinterest.ue for about
Look at my age and older, us
will now start looking at plants baby boomers, those of us that
their healing, their therapeutic in a different way for maybe
And really nobody has grasped on issues.
gardens, in a way that I thought to this, none of the public
So this is a great place for a that they would.
establish itself, and this is one of the areas that I do want
to look at getting into once we have all the structural repairs
done. And we're trying to do more PR
and marketing.
we're pulling together as part In fact, one of the committees
actual PR and marketing group ofbecause one of our biggestan
challenges is people don't know who we are, they don't know our
situation, they don't know about
what we're providing for free, our funding, they don't know
I think we've done a good job of and we need to get the word out.
Expo. I think in the four years I've
been here we've at least gone from I've never heard of you to
I've heard of you, I just haven't been there yet.
So we're making progress, I think.
But what I tell people, it's amazing.
It's not just people outside our
You'd be surprised how many people within Madison don't know
who we are. And, again, we have a different
setting as a university setting,
that we were going to have to and theslook at in 2008.old you
I hate to tell you, not many of these have improved.
Parking is still an enormous
Even those people in the Madison issue.
and many, many good gardeners that I talk to, they say they're
not going to come in because we don't want to park on campus.
We don't want to drive on campus.
It's a huge, horrible issue.
going to be ticketed on And peopleweekends.nk they're
So the education we have to get out there for parking.
The size of the garden, I can't expand.
So we've got to do with what
We don't have true facilities, size we have.
educational programs, we don't so to do all these kinds of
Budget is still an issue and have the facilities to do them.
Staffing is an issue. I'm still the only full-time
person. And, again, all of the
structural stuff we talked
So anyways, to conclude, I want apeople to understand, and.
sometimes I don't think everybody truly knows what a
public, what a teaching garden
say we are plants and education. is and what we're about, but I
know I'm not only passionate If you know me well enough, you
passionate about education. aThat's why I write for
magazines.
book. ThI'm emphatic on teaching a
regionalism.
are, I do a whole talk and I The reason that so many plants
the title. think you might understand it by
Look Like the Marketing Image?" It'The Midwest is entirelyine
different than the whole rest of the country, and we need
to educate people why it's
if they're going to be different, how it's different,
So, we are not just about successplants.deners.
We're about education, but I
also plants and people. tAnd that's the people who come
and use the gardens, it's the people who help us in the
gardens, it's the classes that
we teach, the students down here use the gardens, the people that
for non-majors. So we are as much about people
as we are plants as well. So, that's four years in, folks.
I think we've accomplished a
considering limited resource as far as funding and staff.
If you haven't visited recently,
over. Any of you that want to come
through, we'll walk through and point out things in person.
And I say, hey, even if you've
because things change almost on been ra daily basis.coming
We love our regular visitors. One of the other things that
makes us different than a lot of
on campus we have a lot of other public gardens is by being
or come and relax. people that come and eat lunch
she comes by every afternoon. Parks her truck and comes in and
relaxes.
I said it's like a Cheers. So, we love our regulars.
when you come in. And that's a wonderful thing.
So please patronize us, use us. Tell everybody we're free.
You certainly can't beat that.
you can contribute to the There's mangardens.also, that
It doesn't always have to be
Our volunteers are contributing enormously.
Certainly, getting the word out,
telling people, use us. When you have friends come into
town to bring in visitors because the more people that
know about us, that generates more support as well.
Thank you, everybody. Do I have time for a few
questions before we go out? [APPLAUSE]