Weekend Duty Blog

March 31^st-April 2^nd 

Caitlin McPhee and Sean Fitzpatrick

Friday March 31^st

Sean and I arrived at the Fanshawe college greenhouse bright and early ready for the beginning of weekend duty, where we met Jeff Rowley, the resident greenhouse technician. We began by going for tour of the campus to see what tasks we would be assigned for the weekend. Unfortunately the weather was not very pleasant out, as the rain fell when we walked through campus with Jeff and another weekend duty crew, Easton, Jordan and Nick who also were being debriefed on what tasks they would be working on and even though the rain fell our spirits were high with excitement . Sean and I started by the Office of the Registrar where we started tying up ornamental grasses so they could be cut back later that day. We broke for a quick healthy break back at the greenhouse with our classmates and then began to work on the same garden. The day was going by fast and before we knew it we had pruned the beautiful Redbud, the Dwarf Lilacs and cut all of the grasses back to 6" in height. We had the opportunity to help Lucas, the Cuddy Gardens Farms technician and Jeff unload the new potting machine from the trailer and into the greenhouse tractor bay. After lunch Sean and I moved on to cut back the tall grasses. Sedums and Salvias were also cut back and we pruned the Hydrangea paniculata 'Limelights'. We finished the day by weeding the gardens of dead foliage and cleaned up any debris so we would be ready for mulching and edging on Saturday morning.

Saturday April 1^st

Sean and I arrived for an early cold and wet start to the day. We met up with the rest of the crew, did our equipment circle checks, clocked in with Jeff and then grabbed our equipment needed for the day. First we relocated the Calicarpa dichotomas at the front of the sign by the Fanshawe College Boulevard entrance to the back side of the sign as they were blocking the College logo on the concrete pillar. Following that we mulched and edged for the rest of the afternoon in our areas. We also put a snow fence up out front to prevent foot traffic through the garden as people were crushing the emerging tulips. Sean pulled the trailer on to the sidewalks and dumped loads of mulch while the rest of the crew used buckets and wheel barrows to disperse it in the beds. By the time the mulch pile was spread another load was coming. We did one last load before calling it a day so we had a full load of mulch when we arrived the next morning. All our tools and equipment were put away as we signed out and took off.

Sunday April 2^nd

We arrived on Sunday to some beautiful sunshine and warm temperatures. The horticulture squad was ready to begin mulching because this was the only task we had to finish. Not much was different from Saturday as loads of mulch were dumped and spread across the many gardens in the H-M-F-E loop. We finished mulching everything in the loop including the boulevard trees after our last break. We than dedicated the last few hours of our shift to clean all the pathways and fluff up the grass and mulch throughout our work site. We used backpack blowers and rounded up all the plant debris into the dump trailer. Sean than did a final compost run and cleaned out the tractor and trailer. Caitlin and Sean took the two tractors back to the C building and locked everything up. We then cleaned all the tools and put them away in their respected positions. That wrapped up our weekend.