Marie Whyte, Head Gardener
Marie is busy cleaning up the Legacy Garden, doing any little chores leftover from fall. She has been planting all of the cold crops in the veggie garden—peas, beets, radishes, potatoes, leeks, onions, cabbage, broccoli, etc. All the trees and shrubs have been fed and she is spreading compost and soil conditioner throughout the garden. She’s tilling the soil wherever she can, conditions permitting. (She says if your ground is workable, now is the time to plant conifers, trees and shrubs.) Pansies just went in for some pretty spring color. Now that the forsythia is blooming, she will be pruning roses next.
Sheryl Fandre, Retail
It was pretty nice outside after work today (March 22). So I decided to spend just 20 minutes working on a small (3’x1’) bed with sweet peas, ranuculus and crocosmias in it. Squatting and kneeling down to pull weeds felt good, getting my hands in the dirt felt great !!! I did a little more! Needless to say, later that night, I realized my legs were SORE. Lesson to self: go slower and don’t do so much at first and try not to do it all at once!
Al Garcia, Manager, Carpenters
Al is landscaping his yard (he is just beginning his 3rd year in his new house). He has new sod down, and now is concentrating on the flower beds, trees, etc. He says he got “brain block” when faced with the empty canvas of his yard. So he has been talking to Anju in Perennials for good ideas and also to fellow workers, asking what they have and what they like. Smart idea, since everyone here has a favorite or two to share. But the best advice comes from Al himself, “I’m just having fun.
Max (Maxwell) and Sam (Samantha), the brother and sister cats that have lived at Edwards for the past 18 years, are no longer with us. Max had kidney failure in February and Sam died in her sleep between the warm seed beds in March. (We all think she was just really missing her sib). It seems so different without them. They were “midnight bandits”, snatching bits of
paper and notes off of the Custom Potting desk or Annual’s desk and depositing them complete with teeth marks up in the Retail area. Putting heavy pots or rocks on the notes didn’t stop them. You could find them asleep in a wide variety of places, always nice warm, cozy spots. They often would hitch a ride in a customer’s wagon. They are missed by employees and customers alike.
