Devin & Eric’s BLOG

NOVEMBER 9th-11^th,

2012 

Hello all, it’s the boys from the Fanshawe Horticulture Program Devin and Eric! After some of the worst planning that we’ve ever done, this is the second consecutive weekend of learning practical’s….. We must admit it’s not that bad as we are learning everything to know about Horticulture in a practical way, but 6:30 am mornings for three weeks straight doesn’t seem fun to anyone, with maybe one exception MR. PASCOE!

On this fairly cold and pretty grey Friday, we are here at 7:50am to get ready and understand our task for the weekend, “OPERATION CLEAN GREENHOUSE: Down to the 9’s”. I must say it is pretty cool that we are both running the Greenhouse by ourselves with no supervision as it allows us to get a real feel in what it’s like to actually run a full operation! After receiving our list of tasks, we began prioritizing everything by listing them due to importance and if they needed to be cultured at any certain point over the weekend.

This is the final weekend before the big sale of Poinsettias that the Horticulture Students collectively grew, so of course we decided that any nurturing of the Poinsettias and cleaning up of the Greenhouse was to be left till Sunday, as it would’ve been really stupid to blow a day cleaning and pruning the Poinsettias when things could get messy and just die on us again!

Friday

First task of the weekend was to get the Poinsettias watered so they can maintain their fullness and of course that beautiful colour. We both agree that they are looking quite spectacular this year and should do very well at the Poinsettia Sale!

Leaving the water lines to irrigate our beautiful crop, we proceeded to transfer all the rooted cuttings in our propagation chamber so we than could clean it out and disinfect it later on in the day.

Potting, as well as transferring the plants into 4” pots were also among the top priorities for the weekend. Devin was the mastermind behind all the planting all day, and even for stratifying the “Pawpaw” seeds we had received from Jack. He meticulously mixed them into a cactus mix (80% ProMix, 20% sand) and then placed them into the fridge for 60-90 days to stratify! Eric was the cleaner, pulling out every last OCD molecule is his body to scrub the damp, algae covered, wood and stainless steel in the propagation chamber with a 10% bleach/soap mix to ensure it was completely clean and disinfected.

Saturday

Saturday was a little bit of drizzly day, but what’s the weather to a Horticulturist right? Oh wait, we were inside a greenhouse…. Oh!!! No we weren’t because we had to walk around and collect samples all day today! The Poinsettia crop, although breathtaking already, does in fact need a bit of dressing up in the pot so we have set out to collect 50 Hydrangea PG stem and flower, 50 Hydrangea Annabelle stem and seed heads, 200 Pinus strobus branchlets, 100 Pinus strobus cones, 100 Picea abies cones, 100 Pinus sylvestris cones! Unfortunately, were unable to locate the 50 Cornus alba sibirica branches! (Search the common names on GOOGLE, I sure as hell had too when I first started out) This did a real number on the both the knees as walking a college campus looking for plants (as fun as it sounds) is quite a workout!

Sunday

Ah and now to the cleaning day, the day where we would take a majority of our day to clean and culture everything in the Greenhouse and I mean EVERYTHING! Starting off in our Tractor Bay, we worked our way in the Greenhouse section by section: scrubbing, bleaching, wiping, dusting, vacuuming and of course mopping every last piece of surface and sign we could see. We disinfected our potting tables and then moved out to finally culture the Poinsettia crop.

We disinfected our potting tables and then moved out to finally culture the Poinsettia crop. Our job was to simply remove any dead or decaying leaves from the pot itself or off of the plant to sure its absolute best looking stature.

Blog

Emilio & Pedro

Friday, 2 November 2012

Me, Emilio and Pedro took out the all annuals around fanshawe, weed the beds, edge and if needed we mulch the beds. We start outside the security office on the two retaining wall beds; we weed and mulch the bed after taking out the annuals. Then we took outthe annual out of the planters around the entrance if it had any grasses or cannas we brought them to get propagated. After that we did the sign bed near the bus stop.

We did the exact same thing with this bed but we had to edge it and we didn’t have enough time to finish mulching. But we did get most of the planters done all we have left to do is the around about near the book store.

Saturday 3 November 2012

I and Pedro finished mulching the sign bed

We than went to another bed and took out some annuals and weed it. After that we finish the rest of the planters today.  We thought it was a good idea to spilt up and do different beds to save time and we decided that we weren’t going to mulch anymore because it was taking too long without the trailer what is broken. So I did the flag bed at the around about and he did the sign bed at Cheapside road entrance we almost finish our beds.

Sunday 4 November 2012

This Sunday was crazy me and Pedro pull 13 hour shift trying to get everything done. We finish our beds then after that we hustle to finish 4 other beds.

We final came to our last main task it is 4:20pm at this point we have therip out the Ribesodoratum.Let me tell you that took so strength the roots spread was incredible and 4 inch thick and garden was big like we probably rip out at least 20 of Ribes. I and Pedro hit a learning curve and the process of ripping out the Ribes. We realize that you can’t garden in the dark because you can see nothing. In the end we finish half at 9:00pm and garden still doesn’t look great because we can’t see anything. 

Poinsettia “Toning” by Stacy Meyerink and Elissa Sutton

We began our Greenhouse Practical this weekend at the Spriet Family Greenhouse, our main focus for the weekend was tending to the 1000 poinsettias that we have been growing since the beginning of term.  We will be selling these poinsettia’s to raise Money for the Fanshawe Horticultural Technician Program and must ensure that each plant is “Toned” correctly to make sure that they are ready for a drastic change of environment, from the warm inviting environment of the greenhouse into household plants.  

The poinsettias have been in a photoinduction period, the process by which the poinsettia go through an extended dark period followed by a light period in order to start the coloring up process.  The photoinduction period ends on November 14^th at which the Poinsettia crop will be ready for sale.

It is time to start “Toning” the poinsettia’s, we reduce fertility by gradually reducing the fertilizer levels to a third of the original strength used for active growing.  To do this we decrease fertilizer timing as well as begin the process of leaching the media to remove any access salt in the media, EC levels will be checked every week to ensure that this process is occurring in the timetable needed.  At this time we will be changing fertilizer formulation to a 12-0-44 mix.  This Particular fertilizer will increase the poinsettia’s ability to deal with stressful situations that will occur when the plant is moved from one environment to another.

It is important to reduce the fertilizer levels in the soil prior to the end of the growing process to help the poinsettias keep longer and reduce any bract browning.  Before sale we will ensure that each cultivar is watered without a fertilizer solution to reduce these salt levels.  It is also important at this time that we reduce the temperature slightly, this will harden off the poinsettia’s and create more vibrant colouration of the bracts about 1 degree Celsius a day, the final temperature before shipping should be held at 16-17 degrees Celsius. 

When you see pollen you can ship the plant, not before.  One thing that is of utmost important is the fact that poinsettia’s are intolerant to any cold temperatures.  They must be wrapped prior to leaving the greenhouse and transported directly to the end location.  Do not leave them outside, do not leave them in the car unattended, keep them warm, anything exposure to 10 degree or below will cause plant damage.

Maintenance practical weekend blogLaura Hill and AyssaLaCroix

October 26-28, 2012

This weekend was difficult but educational. We didn’t have the best weather which made the tasks we were given harder to accomplish but we did the best we could with what we were given. Friday, our number one priority was to get the tree planting equipment ready for the first years to plant their class tree. We demonstrated and helped plant the tree properly and after they were done we added extra mulch and watered the freshly planted tree. We then moved on to planting our own tree, the Oxydendron arboretum, or sourwood.

We properly staked, wrapped and protected the tree with a tree guard then mulched the tree with the proper technique and watered it.

 

Once we had completed the tree plantings, we started working on trimming back the Hemerocallis and Hostas in the Louise Weekes gardens, along with any other perennials that appeared to be spent. The dutch hoe was used to weed the rest of the Louise Weekes garden andwe soft raked the weeds out and disposed of them once the dutch hoe had gone over everything. Next we mulched the freshly weeded areas and collared the trees in the area properly.

At the end of the day we took all our plant waste to the compound, washed off our tools and put them in the tool room, then put the RTV back in the tractor bay.

Saturday our priority was to get the bed across from the Louise Weekes garden mulched, edged and weeded.

The weather on Saturday was terrible, very rainy and windy, so we did the best we could with edging but our biggest challenge was having the edge sink because of how wet the soil was. We did the best we could with edging, and moved on to using the dutch hoe to get the weeds out of the bed. Once we had finished weeding we mulched the area using four tractor loads of mulch and spread it throughout, we had a bit of extra so we mulched a few areas in the Louise Weekes garden.

Once we had finished that we went over to R1 and dug up 30 of the Gazania ‘New Day Orange’ and potted them up for sale. For the rest of the day we did our best to weed the R1 beds.

Sunday our focus was the G sub courtyard. Our tasks were to weed and edge the beds, remove the cedar and add tree collars to all of the trees, but like the entire weekend, the weather was against us, it was raining and very windy. We began by removing the cedar from next to the door as it was brown and dead.

Once we removed the cedar we proceeded to add tree collars to the trees and weed the interlocking pavers that led to the center of the circle. We also did our best to weed the beds with the junipers. We tried to edge but the soil was just too wet and uncooperative.
We then went back to the Louise Weekes garden to divide the Pennisetum by the Acer pseudoplatanus ‘Eskimo Sunset’
We then did our best to clean up our work site, and our equipment. We power washed the RTV and the John Deere tractor and hosed down our tools and swept the tool room.
All weekend long we did our best to clean up after ourselves and get as much done as we possibly could. The weather was definitely against us, but it was a productive and educational experience none the less!

Greenhouse Practical Blog

Shane and Travis

October 26-28, 2012

Bulb Forcing!! During our weekend practical, the most important job was planting the Tulip and Hyacinth bulbs in preparation for over wintering. We kept the bulbs in the fridge so they would stay cold before planting. The over wintering process started with 6 inch azalea pots, bulbs and ProMix. Each pot was filled to the height of the bulbs so the tips of the bulbs could stick out of the ProMix and prepare for the winter climate.

In preparation for the bulbs, we had to prep the cold frame boxes in the tractor bay storage area. We re-levelled the ground out a bit better to make it even for the pots to sit on top of. We started off by putting 3 tulip bulbs in each pot until Mike showed up and told us we were doing it wrongL!!! This took us about an hour to correct our mistakes. He also said that if there were too many to correct that we could leave some of the tulip pots with 3 bulbs, so we did. He explained to us that each Hyacinth pot should have 3 bulbs because they are larger than the tulip bulbs, and the tulip pots should have 6 bulbs, 5 surrounding the outside of the pot with the fat side out and one in the center so it makes a full pot when they bloom. The reason for putting the bulbs fat side towards the outside of the pot is because the first leaf of the plant will sprout through that fat side! This is a very important process and we want to make it easier for the bulb to sprout! After all the bulbs were planted, they were labelled and watered. We did not over water the pots but we did give them ample amounts of water and left the tops of the cold frames off during the day while it was raining (Mike said that was okay).

 To stop the bulbs from being damaged or eaten by rodents, we added 2 rodent traps to the cold frames. We used a rodenticide called Ratak+.

They are small blue pellets that the rodents eat and die after one feeding.

Weekend IPM Blog

By: Laura and Alyssa

October 19-21, 2012

Laura and I were asked to release half of the biological controls into the greenhouse, this included 25 Biobest cards, and 25million Nematodes. The Biobest cards contain the larva of Eretmocerus eremicus and Encarsia formosa, these are both considered to be parasidic wasps that attack 2 different types of whitefly. Encarsia are the black larva and these hatch and attack the greenhouse whitefly, while Eretmocerus attack the silverleaf whitefly. The Nematodes were being released to control the fungus gnat problem. Both of these controls are to be stored in to refrigerator until they are ready to be used, this is because the Biobest cards will begin to hatch when exposed to the temperatures in the greenhouse, and the nematodes will become useless if they are heated to room temperature.

 Friday we observed the Biobest cards before placing them throughout the greenhouse to see the before image of  the larva.

Friday was also a good day for us to apply the nematodes, we concluded this based on the information that the media would need to be fully saturated for the nematodes to activate and function properly. We mixed 25 million nematodes (half of the container) with 10L of temped water, and stirred the solution continuously, this is also an important step to ensuring that the nematodes work properly, we applied 20ml of the nematode solution to each poinsettia.

Saturday we decided to pull a few of the Biobest cards off of the crop to observe if any of the larva had begun to activate, in doing this we found that some of the Eretmocerus had begun to emerge where as we were unable to find and specimens of the Encarsia emerging. We took a few pictures of the Eretmocerus emerging.

We then began our search of the sticky strips in hopes of finding both whitefly specimen’s, we found a greenhouse whitefly and a silverleaf whitefly on the sticky strips.

We then did research on symptoms of whitefly and found that suckering of leaves can often be caused by the whitefly eggs, we pulled a few leaves that had these symptoms. Using the 140x camera we found both freshly laid and mature eggs of the greenhouse whitefly, we concluded that that white to transparent eggs were freshly laid whereas the mature eggs are brown or black in colour.

Finally the biggest moment in our IPM research was finding a pupa of the silverleaf whitefly on the backside of a ‘Polar Bear’ leaf. The bug book described the pupa as being yellow/transparent with red eyes, often found in a profile view, where as the greenhouse whitefly pupa has a more flattened appearance.

In the end our opinion is that the biobest cards would most likely work a lot better if storage is made a priority because if they aren’t it degrades the quality of the cards, which in turn affects the number of pests present in our greenhouse.

Furthermore we feel that there needs to be a better way to add the 20ml of nematodes to the pots; using measuring cups does not allow the distribution to be exact, which again affects the number of pests we have to deal with.

We also can confidently say that both types of whiteflies are still present in the greenhouse.

Fall Clean-up

Tami Gillespie and Nicolas Gleba

Friday, Oct 19, 2012

            A cool and windy morning greeted us Friday as we began out weekend practical. Upon arriving at the greenhouse we were informed that the tractor and trailer were going in for repair and servicing therefore the all important fall mulching would be put off for another weekend. Instead we were tasked with cleaning up and weeding the Louise Weeks garden, with some minor work in the Woodland Garden.

Ribes Hedge

            We started by cleaning up an overgrown Ribes odoratum hedge. The Ribes hedge at the Fanshawe College Gardens can be found bordering a sidewalk near a parking lot outside K Building. Grown as an informal hedge, it is uses a transition plant between the parking lot and the Woodland gardens. Suckers are a troublesome problem with Ribes they send up multitudes of shoots through their expansive root system. Using a spade we dug/cut out numerous of these suckers, found growing inside or some distance away from the original planting line. Due to its location our hedge had become sort of garbage trap. Not only did we spend all afternoon fishing out garbage, but dead plant material, and of course leaves. Using loppers and secretors tasked with the awkward trimming of the over grown hedge. Doing our best to make our cuts invisible to the pedestrians, as well making all sections of the hedge the same length we pruned the hedge back.  

Finished Hedge

Saturday Oct 20, 2012

            We woke to a wet morning, and another daunting task. The Louise Weeks Garden, comprise, of deciduous and coniferous trees, broadleaved evergreens and many different varieties of herbaceous perennials required major work. While Nick attacked a garden bed filled with bindweed, I took on the project of cleaning up a group of Cirsium diacanthum (Ivory Thistle). This self seeding perennial is slightly invasive due to its habit of spreading through seeds and rhizomes, it's sharp, thorns makes it a slightly problematic plant to deal with. Nick continued to rage war against the bindweed, discovering even with garden forks and shovels it was hard work removing every last bit of it. While many perennials weren't looking their best a few unique things were happening around the garden. A Hamaelis virginiana (Witch-Hazel) was in full bloom, its unique blooms contrasting against the dark bricks. The perennial grasses were in full bloom, billowing in the wind and giving interest to the otherwise empty beds.

Flowering Hamaelis virginiana      

Cirsium diacanthum (Ivory Thistle)

Sunday Oct 21. 2012

            On our last day, the priority remained on digging up, diving, and replanting a Miscanthus grass, and more weeding, raking and cutting back of the perennial beds. The task of digging up and dividing is harder than it sounds. Division of perennials is an old way of plant propagation. For perennial grasses, it is the best way to get true to type plants. Using a spade and shovel, this task was accomplished. Suckers continued to be the biggest weed within the garden. Even the Hamaelis and the Sumac sent up tiny shoots through the mulch. Cutting the larger suckers, and hand ripping the smaller ones became the most efficient way of eradicating every bit of the plant. We ended our day, by raking up any left over debris and leaf blowing the side walk clean.

Divided grass    

Blog Post October 12-14, 2012
Holly, Caitlin and Brandon

Friday, October 12, 2012:

A beautiful day to start off an otherwise rainy weekend garden maintenance practical. We reviewed our tasks, asked questions while we could, and took many notes when special instructions were given. As we reviewed our tasks, we began to develop a work plan for the weekend by prioritizing what work could be done in the most efficient manner. We did not know that our plan would soon have to be revised; while circle checking the Kubota tractor, we discovered that the lights were not working properly. This is a great example of why circle checking all equipment before use is very important. To maintain our goal of efficiency, we began weeding and editing the Woodland Garden while the lights on the tractor were being repaired.

A photo of the Woodland Garden in progress.

Saturday was a soaking wet day, which was disheartening for us but good for the conifer garden. With winter approaching the conifers need to be supercharged so we set up a sprinkler to start the process. Supercharging ensures that the trees are at their maximum water holding capacity which will prevent a moisture deficit when the bright winter sun causes moisture loss from the leaves. In the afternoon it began to rain heavily so we turned the sprinkler off and let nature continue the supercharging.

Photo of the sprinkler set up.

            The rest of Saturday was spent tidying up the conifer garden and weeding the Woodland garden. In the conifer garden we removed weeds from the concrete pathways and did a quick weeding of all the beds.

Photo of the conifer garden during clean up.

In the woodland garden we continued to weed and edit and significant progress was made in shaping the garden up. By the end of the day both the conifer and woodland garden were ready to be mulched.

            The top priority for Sunday was getting the mulch down on the Woodland and conifer gardens. However when we were hooking up the trailer the battery began to smoke so it was deemed unsafe to operate. This meant that mulching was off the table for the day so Holly and Caitlin continued to weedand edit the Woodland garden. It consisted of final touch ups and going over the work that had been done to ensure that everything was complete.  The weeding and editing of the Woodland garden was the most time consuming aspect of the weekend but the garden is shaping up nicely.

Meanwhile, Brandon worked on cleaning up the compound by line rimming overgrown weeds and disposing ofunusable concrete .After lunch, Caitlin and Brandon unloaded the trailer which was full of weeds and debris from the previous two days’ work. Due to the malfunctioning trailer electronics, the weeds and debris were unloaded by hand.

Once work was complete, final clean up was performed. All equipment was washed down including hand tools,  and the backpack leaf blower was used to clear all paths in the Woodland and conifer gardens.  During clean up, the bulb boxes were put on the soil in the holding area with landscape fabric underneath them. Upon performing a final check we discovered that someone had ripped off the branches of the Cersistree that was planted earlier during the weekend.  Hardly any foliage is remaining on the tree

Practical Journal Entry - Travis Shaw & Shane Sofia

Friday – Sunday

October 5-7, 2012

Submitted to: M.Pascoe

Friday: We started our weekend practical Friday morning in the greenhouse with Jeff. Jeff helped explain to us what we were to do over the course of the weekend. After our meeting with Jeff we moved ourselves into the tractor bay, where we spent at least 30 minutes signing out equipment and completing the proper circle checks.  We noticed a few key things that we discovered over the course of the weekend that we should have asked Jeff before he left. We noticed that the battery to the trailer works one time then the battery is completely drained. Travis completed the circle check for the trailer and it appeared to work but that was not the case. After all the equipment was signed out we started to pick and remove all weeds and suckers in the gardens. We were unable to get all the suckers due to lack of time.  After the weeding was complete, Jeff assigned Travis to plant the extra trees that were added to our list. While Travis was planting, I was at the front of the school re-tying and staking the Ginko that was added to our list and planting the Tsuga in the conifer garden in front of K building.

 After the trees were planted we moved onto planting the Taxus.

We noticed that it was fairly easy to plant them with one person, so we decided I would cut down one of the Malus trees and Travis would continue with planting. At the end of the day we washed off our equipment and helped Pedro close up shop.  (Cleaning the tractor bay)

Saturday: On Saturday Travis was only available to work from 8-11am, so we decided to get as much mulch as possible before he left. We were only able to get on trailer load down and on a tarp for me to work off of because the trailer battery wasn’t working properly. We put the battery on the charger for some of the day Saturday but it did not work (we used the trickle battery charger). After Travis left I helped Pedro and Josh dispose of their waste at the compound, after that I planted the last Taxus between the burning bushes. After lunch I laid mulch until 4pm then I started to do, my clean up. We were unable to complete all of the mulching due to Travis being absent and the trailer acting up.

Sunday: On Sunday we started off our morning by planting Piceaabies‘Slim Jim’ in between burning bushes in the corner of the conifer garden closest to H café.

After the tree was planted I staked and tied it while Travis went to pick up mulch. When the mulch arrived at the conifer garden, we laid out a tarp and started to hand bomb the mulch out of the trailer due to the battery situation. After the mulch was out of the trailer, I stayed to lay it out, while Travis went to get another load of mulch. Then we took lunch, during lunch we put the trailer on the plug in charger for an hour then it worked once or twice before dying on us again. By the end of the day we finished installing as much mulch as possible, and with our last half hour we started to do our cleanup, take pictures do a walk around for equipment and, make sure all the proper paperwork was completed for the trees we planted.

In conclusion: with the amount of work we were given and the situation with Travis on Saturday we are satisfied with the amount of work that was completed.  We think that if we were together for the whole weekend all the tasks would have been completed.

Ashly Haagsman & Candice Lapointe Greenhouse Blog

October 12-14, 2012

Over our weekend practical we completed many essential tasks for the Fanshawe poinsettia crop (Euphorbia pulcherrima). The most important task we completed was watering and fertilizing the crop. “the hand that holds the hose controls the crop.”. It was a meticulous job. Poinsettias are in the Euphorbia Family and therefore are required to dry out in-between watering. Over watering can lead to root rot in the Poinsettia. We needed to observe the crop for any plants requiring culture and apply the correct amount of fertilizer, to ensure the crop did not get fertilizer burn.

Some symptoms we were looking for were wilting, browning, crinkling of leaves, a light feeling to a pot compared to a watered one, the media pulling away from the side of the pot or light brown media (as its watered it turns dark brown).

Euphorbia pulcherrima wilting. It could be caused from lack of watering or overwatering causing root rot

 

Euphorbia pulcherrima showing symptoms of requiring water. Notice the media pulling away from the sides of the pot. To ensure the media is water toughly it needs to be applied slowly

We used the Dosatron to apply a 250ppm fertilizer to dark coloured Euphorbia pulcherrima cultivars (Red Glitter, Christmas Feeling, Winter Rose, Christmas Day, and Classic Red). And 300ppm for the light coloured cultivars (Polar Bear, and Poly Pink).

They were watered one bench at a time to ensure the Dosatron and drip lines were working correctly. We tagged the drip lines that did not work to ensure they got watered accordingly and that the lines were fixed promptly.

We took a drip line out of a poinsettia and placed it in a measuring cup to ensure 300ml of water and fertilizer were applied to the poinsettias.

We noticed while watering that the water was not very blue, implying that there was no fertilizer coming from the drip lines. The Dosatron seemed to be in working order and the hose that was used to flush the lines was blue. However, when we checked the other hose in the greenhouse (on the far end) after the Dosatron was “working”, its line also had to be flushed in order to run blue. As per last week’s greenhouse class, the Euphorbia pulcherrima were on par with what is expected as per Ecke “OnTrack” website.

The Euphorbia pulcherrima required no further watering over the weekend, although they were monitored

Browning of the leaves could show signs of requiring water or fertilizer burn.