Weekend update…rain!

by Eliana Brown, RORG Team Leader

This post covers September 21st – 23rd.

SAT, SEP 21: Happy to report that thanks to all the wonderful volunteers last week, we were able to get two-thirds of the garden planted. Pretty great!

This does mean that one-third of the plants remain in the greenhouse and need watering over the weekend.

See the identification signs above the plants in the photo? These signs are made with reused materials. SSC was nice enough to gift us refillable water bottles for our volunteers. Each bottle came in cardboard with a plastic sleeve, which is fortuitous for the greenhouse’s humid environment. We used nearly all the material.

Watering the greenhouse plants didn’t take much time. Watering the rain garden, however, did take awhile even with the help of my friend, Sue Feldman. Sue has earned the title of official “Friend of RORG” for helping me handle the heavy garden hose.

While we battled said heavy garden hose, another battle was happening. We had an audience of Pokémon Go players, who were gathered at the garden (aka, the Pokémon Go Gym) to fight over the character Meotwo. If anyone from the Pokémon Go company is reading, please reach out to me. I’d love to find a way to integrate the game with our garden.

SUN, SEP 22: Rain! The rain garden is getting tested. Yesterday, I installed a little rain gauge in the garden. We’ll see what happens…

MON, SEP 23: I texted RORG Team member, Kate Gardiner, early in the morning and asked her to take photos, check for any standing water, and read the rain gauge on her walk into work (She walks by the garden most every day).

The results: with a little more than an inch of rain, the garden had already soaked up all the water! This is very promising. Later in the day, Karen Folk, Master Naturalist Lead, reported that the plants look happy after the rain. There’s that word again and I do think it’s safe to say, we are ALL happy.

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Tomorrow, Tony Heath is back finishing up Phase I work. Layne Knoche returns Wednesday continuing with Phase II plant installation. Check back for more updates — including details about the plant install from Layne — coming soon.