Weekend Maintenance Blog - September 29 - October  1, 2017

Nicole M. and Rebecca J.

This weekend at Fanshawe College was extremely rainy, soggy but warm which made it hard to believe that we were already beginning to prepare the campuses gardens for winter. This weekend gave us the opportunity to learn how to create winter interest in a garden using existing plants, such as ornamental grasses and perennials. We also gained experience by using power tools such as power shears, which we had a lot of fun using!

 Friday we had a shorter day due to CLT testing that took place in the morning. Which was an exciting experience for all of us entering the world of horticulture.  We began our shift by walking the gardens. We were given the gardens in front of Fanshawe's registrar's office and M building. We discussed what needed to be done in these gardens to have them ready for winter and made a plan on what we could achieve over the weekend and what we would prioritize. From there we had little time left so we started by cutting back perennials and weeding in front of the registrar's office. As we came to the end of the day we disposed of our compost and we did our first tool clean up, ensuring everything was cleaned and put away accordingly.

Saturday was a big day. This is where a huge chunk of our work took place. We prepared the garden outside of the registrar's office and D building by tying back all grasses into tepee’s which made it really easy to collect all of the debris once they were cut down. While cutting the grasses down we made sure to make sure they had more of a “mound” formation as this creates winter interest. We also cut back the masses of Salvia in front of F building as well as weeding. We hand groomed the Bergenia as we decided that it gave the garden some interest as far as colour and texture.

Sunday we were in for some severe weather.  It was very windy and we had torrential downpours and even hail at one point during the day, but we had a lot to do still so once the weather calmed down we got back to it. We finished off doing some weeding, cutting and raking up the debris in front of F and M building. At the end of the day we cleaned up our tools and took our last tool inventory. By the end of this weekend we both learned time management is a big factor in our industry and it is key to make it a priority.

Weekend Duty                                                                    Jensen M.                     October 15, 2017                                                                Tawny R.

Friday October 13

  After a long day of CLT examinations we arrived at the greenhouse at around 2pm to start an afternoon's worth of work. We met Jeff in the greenhouse and he explained all the weekend duty protocols and his expectations of the weekend. Tawny and I than met with Sue and went over the POS system and everything that goes along with the sales production at the greenhouse. She than took us around the greenhouse and showed us what was expected of us over the next couple of days. Jeff then showed me how to calculate the fertilizer amount that goes into the all-purpose fertilizer tank. I than refilled the tank while Tawny was learning how to use the ECE and pH reader. Without hesitation we then started into transplanting succulents in cute little ceramic bowl arrangements.

By the time we got those finished it was time to close up the POS system and count up our float for the next day. We cleaned up the mess we had made and finished our day off by closing the shade curtains.

Saturday October 14

We arrive at 7:50am to start our second day of work. When we first got settled in we opened the blackout curtains and walked the crop to make sure all of the poinsettias were happy 

After all that was complete we noticed the power was not working for anything in the potting room. Before we got a hold of Jeff to fix the problem the power was out for 3 hours. So we just started transplanting cuttings from propagation chamber into 4” pots and placed them on the heating mats. Just before lunch i removed a dead squirrel in the tractor bay. After lunch we removed hanging baskets from the yellow drip line as Sue requested. We than took the rest of the hanging baskets and cut back all stock baskets nice and neat.

Throughout the afternoon we also accomplished 96 coleus ‘GoldSpot’ cuttings and placed them on the heat mat as well.

We called Rebecca and Nicole on the radio to come dispose of all the compost we created throughout the day. We then closed the blackout curtains and headed home for the night.

Sunday October 15

On Sunday we opened the greenhouse and had the Blackout curtains opened by quarter after eight. We spent an hour filling out our log books and setting the camera up for the day. We watered the ornamental grass at the east end of the greenhouse. We than walked the crop and decided the poinsettias could use a little water so we watered through drip lines for 3 minutes. For the remainder of the morning we put some plastic pots away and filled out the ECE and pH readings for the poinsettias. After lunch we thoroughly cleaned the greenhouse (figure4) and helped Kathy bring in the plant donations. We closed the curtains for the last time and we left the greenhouse.   

Weekend of October 6^th-8^th, 2017

By: Chris M. & Stephanie T.

Friday 6^th

We arrived at the greenhouse bright and early ready to receive all the information and advice from Jeff Rowley, the greenhouse technician. Our day started by running through the rules and the safety guidelines. Next, Chris opened the blackout curtains to allow the poinsettia crop day time light. Well that was being done, Steph walked all the benches and spot watered what needed to be watered, and fixed a couple of the dripline. She then ran the lines to water all the hanging baskets. Then we opened up the plant sale around 11:30. The greenhouse sales went well, but the squash we grew out a Cuddy Mac (AM) Gardens sold out before lunchtime. After the fresh nutrient-rich lunch break, we helped plant up some Alocasias that were dug up out of the woodland garden. The plants were to be moved into the interior-scape around the college. Chris helped move some of into the T building while Steph washed some pots. We then started to tidy up the around the greenhouse when our last costumer got to the greenhouse just before we started to close the till for the day. We then closed the blackout curtains so we could put the crop to bed.

The Poinsettia crop requires what’s called a photoperiod where there must be 12 hours of complete darkness. Since the greenhouse is located in a city environment, we use black tarps to block out any sort of light pollution created by the college and street lights. If these conditions are not met, the crop will not produce the colourful bracts that it is known for.  The 12 hour photoperiod must be uninterrupted, or the blackout process must be restarted, and this may affect when the crop is ready for sale. This would likely prove to be an issue because most crops, like the Poinsettia, are sold at certain times of the year. If the crop is not ready for a particular time, the greenhouse would lose sales, and there would be significant profit loss.

Saturday 7^th

                We began Saturday by opening up the blackout curtains in the greenhouse, and completing the opening checklist. After doing a walk of the crop, we determined that everything was functioning normally. Following that, we both helped Josh transplant a diseased Ficus tree that was close to D building. We struggled to get both the tree and the pot outside. After getting security to remove the middle portion of the doorway, we troubleshot ways of moving the heavy pot outside, and into the RTV. This took a while, but we were eventually able to get the pot in the back of the RTV after emptying out most of the soil.

Sunday 8^th

                We started the day the same as the previous by opening the blackout curtains and checking the crop. From there we placed 4 yellow bug monitoring cards in various places throughout the greenhouse. After 4 hours, there were only 2 thrips, one fungus gnat, and a shore fly that were captured.  Steph helped Josh with an interior-scape transplant of a Ficus tree while Chris worked on the blog for a bit. After washing a few more pots, we worked as a team to figure out the E.C. and pH testing process. Chris completed most of the testing while we were preparing to get the greenhouse ready for closing. Since it’s a holiday on Monday, we ensured that all the crops in the greenhouse were prepared for a day of no maintenance.

    

  

Weekend Duty Blog

BY: Justin M. and Will S.

            Our weekend duty was from September 22^st to September 24^th. Our job was to clean up the Louise Weekes garden and install some fresh mulch.  We started at 7:50 am with Jeff providing instructions and a tour of the campus to show us where everything we needed was. This took up quite a bit of time our first day. While showing us the gardens we are required to clean up, Jeff had my partner and I tell him what we would do to clean it up and make it look nice. This was great because it is fairly easy to follow instructions, so if he just said, “Do this, this, this and this” we aren’t learning much, where if he leaves it up to us to decide it puts more pressure on us to make it how we would want it to look. The Louise Weekes gardens were quite covered in weeds and unwanted Eastern Redbud saplings. We spent the rest of the day weeding the gardens and emptying the greenhouse compost whenever needed.

            Day 2 is when the week end got a little more fun! At the beginning of day 2, we finished off the weeding which took maybe 2 hours or so. After all the weeding was done, we decided next we should tackle the pruning of shrubs/cutting of perennials. There was not many shrubs in the gardens that needed to be trimmed up. Weigela florida ‘Bristol Ruby’ was in dire need of a pruning. Since it looked like the weigela hadn’t been pruned in a while we sort of mixed the two pruning methods. First we cut out the super mature growth which will encourage new growth. This got rid of a lot of the long shoots sticking up. After that we tipped the remaining shoots, attempting to give it a good shape. There was also a shrub that had a lot of dead wood on it, which we removed. We also pruned out the reverting leaves on the Euonymus fortunei ‘Emerald Gaiety’ (wintercreeper) because if we were to leave them even more would revert and eventually the whole plant would be reverted back to straight species. There was a peony that we thought needed to be removed, but a google search told me that the peony was generating and storing away energy for next season. We should have removed it later in the season but Jeff said there was no one else going back to that garden until winter, so we removed it now to avoid an eyesore come winter. We also got all the edging done and some mulch in the gardens.

            Day 3 we spent most of the day on the tractors loading the mulch, and running wheelbarrows to the garden. This was really fun because we got to drive the tractors and gave us some experience with pulling trailers and backing them up. Once we finished spreading the mulch we blew all the mulch that we spilt back into the garden beds. With our edge on the garden all the mulch fell neatly against the side with very minimal amounts spilling over onto the sidewalk, which we blew back in. Overall weekend duty was a great experience and we learned a lot in time management and maintenance skills.

Fanshawe Grounds Weekend Blog

Sept. 15-17

Written By: Jennifer H. and Nicolai J. 

This is the first weekend duty shift this autumn and it happened to be sunny and warm all weekend; it still felt like summer. Out of the both of us, Nicolai had the most experience and was a tremendous help over the weekend.  Early Friday morning we arrived and were given the rundown on our weekend tasks and a quick walk through of the facilities. We were assigned an area by G building to start out with and then asked to continue through the Louise Weekes Garden. Most of the plants in this garden were donated by Louise Weekes, who was a passionate gardener herself, and when she passed away it was commemorated in her memory. 

Friday: So, first thing we decided was to clean up the garden bed by G building, before starting on the process of mulching. We picked up some garbage and thoroughly went through the bed digging out any weeds we could find. Half the bed wasn’t too bad, only a few weeds, but the other half was pretty weedy. Under all these weeds were some Astilbe (to the right of the Hydrangeas from the image - Figure 1) that were hiding out and were probably pretty grateful of the extra space they now had. We also deadheaded Hostas, pruned back some Holly bushes as they were getting pretty large, and cleared the few windows of the climbing Ivy. The last thing we wanted to do before mulching was to relocate some Hostas that were getting lost under the Holly bushes and to move some ‘mini’ Hostas to a more empty area. Then it was on to mulching. We made an edge around the bed, using a Dutch Hoe, extending the bed around the new cooling machine installed there recently to make it easier to mow later on. Nicolai went to pick up some mulch but unfortunately we ran out of time so the mulching was to be completed Saturday.   

                 

Saturday: Early Saturday morning, after getting all of our tools ready for the day, we got straight back to work. The first few hours were spent mulching yesterdays bed and we completed our first garden bed!

It was then time for us to move on to the Louise Weekes Garden. We started with the closest gardens near the doors and got to work with weeding and pruning the Ivory Silk Japanese Tree Lilac which was overhanging the walkway.

In the bed opposite of the Tree Lilac were some Ornamental Thistles that did not belong there and had migrated from a surrounding garden bed. We decided to keep them and moved them all to under the Tiger Eyes Sumac. We also edged and mulched both beds ending our second day.

Sunday: Our last duty shift for the weekend! We were headed back to the Louise Weekes garden to continue to clean up and mulch some more of the garden. Again we checked out our equipment and gathered our tools for the day before setting out. We chose the bed with the young Norway Spruce and the Bear’s Breeches. This bed had quite a bit of weeds to remove. Canadian Thistle and a type of grass, and also some more of the Ornamental Thistle which we consolidated into the middle of the bed (apparently this is where it was first planted). We removed the spent flowers of the Bear’s Breeches and some Daylilies before we started the edging. We edged and mulched the entire bed, taking care not to cover up some smaller Rose plants that had spread throughout one corner. We finished just after lunch and then it was time to clean up. We cleaned all our tools, the tool room, and made sure our work areas were also nice and tidy. Nicolai went to grab the Leaf Blower and finished up our work for the day cleaning up anything we might have missed. It was a beautiful weekend to be outside and I think we both enjoyed getting our hands dirty. Have a great week everyone!