Friday May, 18, 2012

   We begin another week here at Fanshawe full force to make sure the grounds are presentable come the graduation ceremonies. With the wonderful sunny weather to greet us we begin week three finishing off the plant beds in and around D courtyard stretching down the length of T building. We look forward to another week of work especially since we havenow welcomed Sijia. So weeds, weeds and more weeds!

 While weeding a plant bed just outside of D courtyard we came across this skeleton that we presume was a squirrel. Any other guesses?

   

   One of the medium sized roots from Agropyron repens found during our weed conquest.

 On Tuesday we headed over to Z building to start unloading our mulch hill into the plant beds… this took a couple days to complete.

   Heading back to main campus for lunch we came across a couple geese families crossing the road.

 Jack loaded up some hanging baskets to take to Cuddy’s.

   Miranda and I made a couple beautiful potting arrangements. 

    There are a wide variety of geraniums in the greenhouse waiting to be planted around campus.

    One of the newer intriguing additions to the Dwarf Conifer Garden due to its dull colour making it almost ghost like, Picea pungens ‘ Bucholtz’

Cataegus xmordenensis ‘Toba’ more commonly known as Toba Hawthorn in full bloom.

The buds on a peony secrete nectar through developing and the ants come along and take this nectar. Although sometimes aphids will get to the nutritious bud first for feeding the ants will still appear and actually destroy the aphids by “milking” them. Many people are worried by this presence of ants but in actuality if the ants do not remove this secretion a hard waxy coating may form and disrupt the blooming period so therefore peonies and ants have a symbiotic relationship.

 Aesculus pavia or the Red Buckeye is in full bloom at the moment, a beautiful site indeed.