Fanshawe College Greenhouse Blog

Zach and Colin - November 14-1, 2014

This is the cash register where customers and visitors purchase their plants and get their poinsettias wrapped up with gold, red or green pot sleeves according to customer preference. All sales get punched in to the register accordingly and a balance sheet is filled out at the end of the day to record the day’s sales. Since it is getting colder out we ask the customer how far they have to walk to their car, if their car is parked further away we would completely wrap up the poinsettia so it doesn’t freeze to death before it even gets home. Then the profits are stored away and one hundred dollars is left in the till for change.

Poinsettias are not the toughest plant. They will show serious signs if anything is wrong with them. What we noticed on Saturday was that they were fairly dry, but because of the open house we did not want to water them and make all the floors wet for the visitors coming through to check out the greenhouse. Any plants that were really wilted we took aside and watered them individually so that they bounced back up for the open house so that they could have a chance of getting adopted.

 

Over the weekend we determined the price for one plant with Jeff. During the open house sale we made up little desk size planters which will also help contribute to the total profit. We also made up a sign of our own outside the green house. The sign was just informing people that plants are now for sale and days that someone will be here. Most of the weekend duties were just preparing for the open house so a lot of the work was housekeeping, improving cleanliness, organizing and putting out signs.