War on Weeds At Z Building
Weekend of september 21st, 22, and 23rd
Nate McKim Bill Nichols and Doug Lawler


This weekend was the story of gardener, versus weeds, an often frustrating and seemingly never ending battle. The primary war zone was the transportation technology building (Z building) of Fanshawe Campus, where big Bill, the Douger and myself engaged in a complete landscape maintenance/ restoration project, declaring war on weeds and all things visually unappealing . Before undergoing this task however, there were other jobs to be done on main campus as well as training to ensure our success in the battle to come.

Friday was devoted to a few tasks around main campus as well as some re familiarizing with equipment and tractors that would prove to be very useful in the next two days. Doug, being new to the Horticulture technician scene, had to undergo tractor/RTV training to be allowed to operate the equipment we have available on campus while ensuring his competence and safe operation of the tractors and RTV. While this was being completed, Bill and myself (having already completed the training last year) were cleaning up some brush around campus, seeding in some grass in bare areas of turf and organizing equipment ourselves and equipment that would need to be taken down to Z building for the next two days.

Saturday morning came early with lots of preparation. After loading up the tractor and dump trailer with all necessary shovels, rakes, Dutch hoes, cultivators and other various implements of destruction, we all headed down to Z building intent on bringing about the immediate end to any weed that stood in our way. The Saturday weeding blitz had begun and with it came the aggravation of dealing with a variety of invasive perennial weeds. Such weeds included: Cyperus esculentus (Yellow Nut Sedge), Agropyron repens (Twitch Grass), Vicia cracca (Tuffed Vetch), Convolvulus arvensis (Bindweed), Equisetum arvense (Field Horsetail) and of course Cirsium arvense (Canadian Thistle).

                                                                        Horsetail

                                                                 Canadian Thistle

                                                                       Bindweed

                                                                 Yellow Nut Sed

                                                                            Tuffed Vetch


   The main concern with these weeds is how adaptable they are to the standard landscape scenario. They all prefer moist, loose, well drained soil which is exactly the type of conditions that we commonly apply to our manicured, mulched landscapes. Most of them also propagate themselves with deep underground rhizomes, that if not fully weeded will result in further division and multiplication of the weed. Control of these weeds has become even more difficult after Ontario’s new pesticide regulation. Control and eradication of these weeds is not as simple as arming yourself with a backpack sprayer full of a systemic or residual chemical. The old fashion weeding fork has come back into play and the sore back after a long day in the garden is no longer a thing of the past. So armed with our trusty weeding forks and strong backs we proceeded to weed and edge H building for approximately 10 hours straight, leaving us enough time to get back to main campus to clean up and plan things out for Sunday.
Sunday morning came even earlier than Saturday with a cold autumn wind chilling us through our safety vests and red horticulture technician sweatshirts. With the majority of the weeding taken care of, we could devote our time at Z building to other tasks at hand. Finishing touches such as edging, pruning, tree staking, edging tree wells, planter clean up, removal of tree watering bags, removal of old plastic plant labels, recording and removing dead plants and so on could be completed. We were all glad to get Z building back under some degree of control. Judging from the before pictures it’s easy enough to see why.

In the end we were all quite pleased with what we got acomplished at Z building over this weekend. We put in a 12 hour Sunday giving ourselves enough time to get back to campus for a thourough cleanup. In the ongoing war of gardener versus weeds, these three horticulture students rained a furry of weeding forks and struck terror deep into the rhizomes of the unsuspecting perinnial pests that call themselves plants at Z building.

                                                                   Nate Mckim

                                                                    Bill Nichols

Doug Lawler (In the far top right corner) despite being camera shy, Doug thoroughly proved his worth as a hard worker and an ace assassin with a backpack blower.

Blog Entry Holly and Caitlin - September 21-23, 2012

Controlling pests and diseases is a constant concern in greenhouses and much of this weekend was spent focusing on these issues. Sanitation and biological controls were applied in order to address these issues.

The greenhouse was thoroughly cleaned: benches, table tops, and other surfaces were scrubbed in order to minimize the risk of contaminants.  Floors were washed down, debris and organic matter was removed from drains and pots were sterilized which should reduce the chances of disease spreading to plants from these sources.

The poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherima) are the main crop in the greenhouse and thus a significant part of the weekend was spent ensuring that they are happy and healthy.  All necrotic tissue was removed and individual plants suffering from root rot were removed and composted to prevent disease from spreading in the crop. The poinsettias were also carefully watered, taking care not to overwater as poinsettias are prone to root rot which is caused by excess water. So plants are kept on the dry side.

The poinsettias also had biological controls applied to them in order to minimize infestations of thrip and white fly infestation.  Parasitic wasps Encarsia formosa (good for greenhouse white fly not silverleaf whitefly) which were on biotags. Amblyseius swirskii for thrips introduce when levels are low and use high enough intro rate to achieve success.

The top priority this weekend was getting the greenhouse set up for the poinsettia () crop photoinduction cycle. Poinsettias’ have photoperiodic flowering which means that flowering is physiologically induced by day or night length. Poinsettias are short day plants, which means that if day length exceeds 11.5 hours flowering will not occur. Since we want the poinsettias to be ready for sale in Nov.-Dec. It is necessary to artificially lengthen the night to approximately 15 hours to ensure that flowering and bract colour occur.

Artificially lengthening the night period was accomplished by installing blackout curtains along the greenhouse walls which are manually closed at 5:00pm and opened at 8:00am (15 hour dark period).  The energy curtain was reprogrammed using PRIVA so that it will also close at 5:00pm and open at 8:00am which prevents light from entering through the ceiling during the required dark period.

Aaron Shubrook and Josh Tiessen

            Professor Mike Pascoe

                       

            MTNC-1017

            September 15^th, 2012

Weekend Duties

                        To the untrained eye the garden beds at the front of T building at the Fanshawe campus, may not have needed to be maintained over this weekend. However that is an understatement to say the least! Due to the location of these garden beds it was crucial that they look their best. A large volume of outgoing and more importantly, incoming traffic would see these gardens as they commuted to and from Fanshawe. The gardens along the front of the college could be among the first thing that influences people’s thoughts on the reputation of this college. At the beginning of the weekend, duties were assigned to the group and a plan on what the most efficient way to go about completing the work was put forth. Before starting to work, all garden beds were examined carefully for overgrowth, weeds and debris/garbage. It was most logical to start from the west end and work down to the end of B building. The first task was to weed the large bed in front of the bus entrance due to the invasion of bindweed. Bindweed spreads through the use of underground roots or tubers (rhizomes) that are able to differentiate into above ground weeds if more photosynthate is desirable to the plant. This bed was riddled with the bind weed and it was recommended that as much of the roots as possible were to be removed due to the likelihood of the invasion reoccurring.

            Once all the weeds were removed from the bed they were taken away to the dumping area and disposed of. Also the mulch in the areas that were disturbed in the removal process was smoothed out to give the appearance as if no one had ever been there. Next the crew proceeded along the building to the perennials, most of which had bloomed already and required the spent blooms to be removed from

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the plants in the most appropriate way. The method for removing most of the blooms was through the use of the gas shears. Once all of the perennials were sheared, some were pruned via secateurs (Peonies) to the first true tree leaf. After all the debris was cleaned from shearing it was then time to move in and cut down the flower stalks in perennials such as Coral Bells so they were not visible. Some dead growth was removed from plants such as Epimedium, etc. Some overgrowth onto the hard surfaces was left to create a softened transition from bed to walkway. Once the perennials were completed the team proceeded to remove spent blooms in the planters in front of the main entrance. The area was then checked over and a quick mulch smoothening was done as well as cleaning off the walkway. It was then time to move on to the overgrown Sumac and Barberry. First was the Barberry, these bushes were time consuming to prune due to the large thorns that grow on this shrub. These shrubs were thinned out and the height was reduced.

            Care was taken to ensure the shrubs did not look “hacked back” by the use of a shearing machine. Each branch was individually pruned back, while taking time to stand back and make sure the shrubs still looked informal. Next was to remove the Sumac that was growing in undesired locations spreading by rhizomes. Some of these were able to be taken out by hand but most required the use of a hand saw. Most horizontally growing branches were removed to keep the look of the sumacs growing upright. Once all pruning was completed and debris was collected and disposed of, all Hemerocallis were deadheaded in required areas, as well as weeding in the all areas in front of T building. Once this was all done the last things to do were to remove two dead Nyssas and plant and Liquidambar in place of these two while using all proper tree planting and staking techniques. A water bag, tree guard and wrap were all included. Finally a quick sweep of the control area was performed. After all garbage and debris was removed from the adjacent areas, including the curb lines it was then time to mulch from the daylily beds to the front entrance. Approximately 8-9 yards of mulch was

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loaded into the dump trailer over the weekend and almost all of it was used to cover bare spots in this area. Most of the bed from B building to T had an entire layer of mulch spread carefully under all plants. The crew then cleaned the hand tools that were no longer required and put them back in storage. The last task was weeding some problematic areas in D courtyard. Then the RTV and tractor was pressure washed thoroughly and stored for the weekend.

            Research Question: We are only able to grow certain species and cultivars of barberry in Canada, because some species and/or cultivars may act as alternate hosts of black stem rust disease.

Pic1: This was is a picture of the garden bed on the West side over the college invaded by bind weed, which was weeded by the crew.

Pic2:  These planters were riddled with mostly dead annual plantings which were removed. The spent blooms were also removed from the geraniums.

Pic3: This is a picture of a plant tag which was almost covered by the perennial planting, which was later pruned back to give the reader a chance to spot the label.

Pic4: This picture illustrates the cobble stone that is used to drain the water from the above overhang and how it was re-organized to provide a crisp edge and curb appeal.

Pic5: This picture illustrates the proper techniques when digging a hole for a tree planting.

Pic6.: A fresh layer of mulch in the Hemerocallis and Calamagrostis beds along the East side of B building.

Pic7: A picture of fresh mulch spread to the correct depth and spread carefully around each individual plant. Also a final picture of the Liquidambar that was planted as per the tree planting demonstration by Mike and Jeff.