Greenhouse Practical – Eric S. & Jessica S. December 6,7 & 8, 2013

Well here we are, end of term one and on the last weekend practical of the year. The weekend has turned cold with a brisk wind feeding our chills. It proved to be a productive weekend with a busy Saturday for Poinsettia sales and a tidy greenhouse. Upon everyone’s holiday farewell we we’re slow to get going on Friday morning, but made up for it with our enthusiastic selling skills! First thing first the poinsettias were priority, checking and watering those that are thirsty. To our surprise, we had a furry visitor. Bruce! J-Rows new companion perked up our spirits and got us smiling for the day.

Jessica tackled the task of rearranging the annuals on to the benches so they could be fed through drip lines while Eric prepared seeds for storage. The hanging baskets were all checked and treated where needed and after a rather slow sales day, our Friday came to an end with the holiday feeling a few days away. Saturday was a good day of sales with us jumping from task to task. After checking over the crop, Eric gathered up the last of the gator bags and got them ready to put away for the winter while Jess took care of some pathos cuttings and then spaced and organized the crop. Finishing up some seed collection to put in storage, we got the orders for delivery ready to go. With the weather treating us a little more festive, Saturday was over.

Sunday was quiet. Unfortunately there were no customers to be seen. This gave us the opportunity to clean, clean, clean! Jess did a great job on the floor that was beginning to look pretty outdoorsy! Eric finished up some Interiorscape paying special attention to our poor poinsettias in front of the library and touched up some painting in preparation for the great Congress exhibition. After a quick wash, the trailer was shining and looking sharp!

We’d like to say thank you to those that supported us by purchasing poinsettias. Also a Merry Christmas and happy new year as well!

Weekend Practical - Ajay, Jordan and Johnny. November 29 - December 1, 2013

On Friday, November 29, we had sold 10+ poinsettias which is the weekend best and we had the chance to make some happy customers. We also had a nice surprise, which was Jeff’s new pet Lenny who kept us company and made our day go by a little quicker. Jeff had to give us the morning run down of the daily operations such as; opening the till, daily check list, watering plants, etc. After that we were on our own! As far as daily tasks it was a productive day. Jordan tackled the task of printing up signs as well as laminating then for the benches, Johnny and I started the daunting task of painting congress materials. This would turn out to be a weekend’s worth of work.

Saturday, the 30th, Poinsettia sales slowed to about half of the amount on the first day. None the less we all kept busy by making stunning new planter boxes that included three or more poinsettias. While Johnny worked diligently on the big job of painting Jordan and I held down the greenhouse. We kept up with watering plants, cleaning windows, and painting additional pots for congress. We also started to sand the large white, steal, table located in the middle of the working area in preparation for painting on Sunday.

On Sunday, our final day, we had yet another productive day. We started by cleaning ledges and sweeping in abnormal spots to clean the place up a bit. Johnny unfortunately had yet another full day of painting. We completed smaller jobs such as; collecting gator bags from around campus and finishing any touch ups on the pots we painted the day before. Jordan had the exciting job of watering the plants indoors while Ajay stayed in the greenhouse to help any potential customers. Unfortunately poinsettia sales came to a halt today. The biggest job today would be painting the work bench. We did it with time to spare so we decided to clean some more! This concluded our weekend practical and overall we believe we did a fine job.

We hope you agree! - Ajay, Johnny, Jordan

November22-24, 2013 Weekend greehouse practical blog – Jaimi and Brittany

We started out the weekend all smiles (yes, even Brittany) as we arrived promptly at the school just before 8am eager to get things started. Jeff met us at the greenhouse where we went over what seemed to be an endless list of all sorts of tasks to complete by Sunday which would surely come sooner than expected. After going over the list we got started on the usual opening tasks; opening the shade curtains, and going over the greenhouse circle check, counting the till and putting out the signs for the plant sale. We noticed the poinsettias needed a little extra love as some were looking a little on the thirsty side. We tackled this together and went through the crop watering as needed. Next, we moved onto the stock plants in the hanging baskets that were over grown and packed very tightly onto the first railing. Giving the larger plants a quick pinch, some water and moving some into their new homes we printed new labels to replace the had written ones and before we knew it; lunch time! After lunch, we went into the school to help Lucas and Jeff who had found the gold mine of wood panels that we are going to use in our build for congress. The 4 of us loaded up a “kart” to carry all the panels down to Drew’s shop so we can begin construction on Monday’s class. After a couple trips we managed to get them into Drew’s shop all in one piece despite Jeff’s poor steering skills, watch out on the roads folks! Next Jaimi and I displayed the proud work of the second year students to the first years during their soils class. We talked about the poinsettia crop and answered any questions they had. Before we knew it, it was already time to gather up the signs, count the float in the till and go home. First day down!

Saturday The second day we were feeling incredibly ambitious and were eager to complete the majority of the tasks remaining on our list. We separated and divided the list and got down to work. Jaimi did some rearranging and consolidating in the greenhouse to start the day out. Brittany potted up the Polka Dot Plants that were in the prop chamber into pots and moved them into the greenhouse. Not soon before the lunch the snow began to fly and within a couple hours we saw our vehicles beginning to disappear, not a bad day at all to be inside the nice warm greenhouse! Brittany moved into the tractor bay and finished painting the shutters for congress. Jaimi tackled a handful of odd jobs in and around the greenhouse. After lunch it was time to do some organizing! Jaimi went through the annual plant tags and did inventory, and we both got into the spirit of the upcoming holidays tackling the Christmas bins under the table. We put a dent in the mountain of pots to be washed and again the day was coming to an end as we wrapped up day with closing duties and wished each other luck on the drive home as we took off fish tailing our way out of the parking lot, by this point the campus was covered in snow!

Sunday As our alarms went off Sunday morning we woke up to Snowmageddon 2.0, we both fearlessly hopped into our vehicles hoping to make it to the college. Jaimi made it to the campus but unfortunately coming out of town even four wheel drive wasn’t enough to get Brittany there on time and she reluctantly turned around to go back home and wait out the storm. Back at the greenhouse Jaimi was flyin’ solo going over the poinsettia crop again, and tidying up the tool box in the tractor bay, and trying to conquer what was left of the pots to be washed. Brittany finally made it into the city around 11:30 and dragged R2D2 through snow and into the college to do the interiorscaping. Jaimi did some off-roading on the RTV trying to find the best possible route to the compound to get rid of all our compost, successfully and with some rosy cheeks she returned, where we finished painting the door in the tractor bay, washed pots, cleaned up the till, closed the shade curtains and locked up. See ya at next semester’s weekend practical!

Katlyn and Courtney weekend practical landscape garden maintenance Nov 1st -3rd, 2013

On this beautiful November day Courtney and I got the awesome privilege of having our second and last weekend practical for this semester, landscape maintenance. The weather seemed to be on our side today which made for a nice way to end the weekend. It was sunny with a high of 4. Friday started out with us installing a green roof down town London at a little cafe. There it was a very nice turn out; lots of volunteers, thanks to all who came out you are all now green roof certified. Us weekend practical groups only stated till 12 then came back to the school, but before we came back we got to enjoy a delicious shepherd’s pie and lasagne lunch. After our tummies were nice and full it was time to get back to work.

For the rest of the day we had the pleasure of removing the annuals in the planters around the college, and also to repair the irrigation line infront of the greenhouse where we installed the walk way a couple weeks ago looks great by the way. Courtney has now become a master irrigation repair lady, be proud Courtney be proud!

Saturday was a wet one; our main goal today was to finish all the annuals around the school. We wanted to get as much done as we could even though it was raining and cold. We pushed through it and succeed! The annuals were out front of the entrance sing in front of T block, in the planters and a couple random ones here and there. Since we completed all of that in time, we had a little bit to spare. So, I got to learn how to refuel the RTV and learned where the tractor and trailer go. Over all it was a successful day for being so cold and wet.

Sunday was Z building day; because it was raining yesterday we decided to wait till today to do the weeding and edging down there. Courtney drove down with the tractor and trailer and I just meet her down there. As a team we powered through 6 beds. Weeding and edging one at a time, making sure everything is up to Pascoe standards. It was very convenient to have a timmies across the street. It was nice to have a little lunch break and was able to enjoy the view of what we have completed so far. After lunch we went hard and were able to finish all the bed within good time, obviously a couple dance breaks were in there during the day too. Crazy how much someone can get done when they have music. Sunday fun day was a success, we cleaned up our area and headed er back down to the school. Put the tractor away, cleaned out tools and tided everything up.

On a side note, I would like to thank Courtney for being the best partner ever. Always motivating me to do my best and showing/explaining anything to me that i have a problem with. Any company would be lucky to have this amazing hort tech on their team. She will do great things in this industry.

Weekend practical maintenance Oct 25- 27 Jordan Milmine, Johnny Clarke, Ajay Percey Friday October 25th Fall is here and the Fanshawe Campus is in transition as the leaves begin to drop and winter approaches. Our day began planting a small patch of Japanese Forest Grass in our recently renovated garden in front of “T” building. With the seasons changing there is a lot of work to be done around campus before colder weather arrives and that began with pulling annuals and tidying up the many outdoor planters and several beds around campus. This was made easier with the use of the Kubota RTV due to the size of the campus. All in all the day was spent doing a lot of running around campus and cleaning up. Saturday October 26th – Sunday October 27th Saturday we unfortunately had a cold rainy day but we started our biggest task of the weekend which was the cleanup of the large beds outside the student union buildings and the R1 Residence. The first, and probably most time consuming step was to cut back the large plantings of Hostas which took a large portion of our time. We found the most effective method was to pull all the stalks into a group and cut them several at a time, similar to the method we learned for cutting back large perennial grasses. Once finished with the Hostas we had opened the bed up and could go through with weeding forks and cultivators to keep the weeds at bay. Sunday the weather was in our favour and we continued our cleanup around the student union and residence buildings. We began the day re-edging the beds once they had dried to prevent creating a muddy disaster. The next step was to prune the Euonymus by removing shoots that extended beyond the bed. We finished up the day cleaning fallen leaves and litter from the grasses and ground covers as well as some general clean up.

Greenhouse Blog entry - October 25-27, 2013 Emily and Jseeica Our greenhouse practical began on the cold rainy morning of Friday, October 25th. As soon as we arrived, Jeff showed us that some leaves of the poinsettias were changing colour! Then he told us what we had planned for the day and we began by splitting up some of the smaller tasks that we could get started on right away. Jess told Emily that she smelt bad so she should do the pot washing to get cleaned up. Some 200 pots later, Emily was covered with water and ready to start another task. During this Jess began propagation on some tropical and annuals and she organized the propagation chamber to make room for some new stuff. Later on, Jeff helped Emily and Jess move three large plants to the second floor of F building. On the second trip to drop off the plants Emily and Jess got lost while trying to get back to the first floor but they quickly realized they were just back on the second floor! After that, we got started cleaning up the poinsettias for any dead foliage. Later, Jeff told us what he had planned for Saturday and Sunday and by then it was time to cleanup to go home. On Saturday, October 26th, it began like any other day with us opening up the shade curtains so our poinsettias could get some light that the cold cloudy day might have to offer. We also decided that the poinsettias needed a good drink of 20-20-20 fertilizer and H20. After finishing up with the poinsettias we gathered up all the tropical plants so we could add them to the interiorscape planters and free up some room in the greenhouse. Jeff also gave us the task of transplanting some of the larger tropical plants into different pots. As you can see below, it definitely was an interesting and messy task! The last day of our time in the greenhouse we spent most of the day finishing up working on the tropicals that we hadn’t gotten to the day before. After that it was a rush to complete the important tasks that were still on our list such as pot washing, propagating, cleaning the poinsettias, closing the shade curtains, and giving the greenhouse floors and tables a good washing from a very productive and messing weekend. We got all of that done and more. What a busy but rewarding weekend!

Green House Practical October 11, 12, 13, 2013


 Dan Grady & Ben Hickey

We began our day at Cuddy Gardens writing our CLT exam, tired as we were; we had some tasks to do. So we were off on the RTV to locate Cannas, Colocasia and Pennisetum plants. We had some troubles finding those plants, so we moved on to cleaning up the cactus bench being careful where we put our hands. We then gave the poinsettia there blackout period. It was a short work day but lots of work to do tomorrow. We Started are first long work day, and like any other morning the poinsettia’s needed to get some sunshine, there’s lots of sun so it’s looking like it will be another nice day.

We started deadheading the poinsettias being very careful as they are delicate, the next task was cleaning out the courtyard, lots of sweeping, but we found giving it a pressure wash gave it that nice clean look that it needed. We ran into a little issue with temperature with the poinsettias, that being how hot of a day is was becoming and having the roof open made the greenhouse temperatures more high than they should be, we called Mike and we were told to give him updates throughout the day. He reassured us that the sun will heat up the greenhouse rapidly on warm days, but should not affect the crop. We finished up the day by doing a big clean and blacking out the poinsettias. It’s been a long day we will definitely have a good sleep tonight.


Our last day in the Greenhouse, the weather was a lot different then yesterday, it’s cold and rainy but that’s Mother Nature. As usual we opened up the blackout for the poinsettias there is a definitely a big change in temperature from yesterday. We decided to clean up the compound and organize it hopefully the weather will hold. We finished off the day by doing a big clean sweeping and spraying down the floors.

Courtney and Katlyn's greenhouse blog - October 4-6, 2013


We started our 3 day greenhouse practical on a very gloomy Friday morning. We needed to start off our morning by going through a greenhouse opening checklist (checking the facilities and all of the plants). After finishing up the checklist we went in to pull back the shade curtains. At this point we have started the short days and longer nights with the Poinsettia crop. It’s crucial so keep on a very routine regiment with the shade curtains so we made sure to watch and make sure the top curtains were opening correctly as well. With the set-up of the greenhouse and having the tall tropical plants inside it was quite tricky maneuvering around them as well as the fragile Poinsettias to reach the curtain hoops. Having a tall friend can be quite handy in this situation! After finishing up the shade curtains we moved on to our next duty which was re-potting some colocasia, purple tree aeonium, pineapple palm, as well as our Wollemia nobilis (Wollemia Pine). This took us some time as we needed to transfer all of the potted up colocasia from the compound into bulb crates. We labeled each crate and moved on. When potting up the purple tree aeonium we needed to stake it for support (it was quite top heavy!). It’s quite interesting how the Pineapple Palms stem actually resembles the fruit pineapple. Katlyn took on walking through the Poinsettia crop to ensure that all pots had drip-lines in them and that each plant looked healthy. While walking through she noticed there was one plant in particular that had been infected with a familiar virus. Hopefully this isn’t a bad sign! Katlyn removed the infected plant and quarantined it so that it would not infect the rest of the crop. A few plants required hand watering but once this was finished up we found it was time to clean. We washed up the pots and cleaned off all areas we had used. Disinfecting as we went along.

We came in to work Saturday morning hoping for some sunshine and nicer weather. Another gloomy day awaited us unfortunately! We drank our morning timmies and headed in to the tractor bay. We were going out in the Rtv to collect all of the Canna Lilys from around campus. We needed to label them and store them in bulb crates in our outdoor compound. We had no idea how many Cannas awaited us on campus and most of them surrounded the greenhouse. To fit all of the Cannas into the compound we needed to move a lot of the plants around in the compound and still found it was a tight fit! We were able to locate a few tags for the plants we removed and kept them with those specific plants.


Sunday was a day all about house keeping and cleaning! This may seem like a tedious job to many but to us hort techs we know that a clean greenhouse will lead to a healthy crop. You never want to have any plant debris or old media on the ground. This meant washing down the entire greenhouse floor, the potting room floor as well as the tractor bay floor. We removed the drains from inside the greenhouse and gave them a good washing to make sure there were no remnants of debris. The drains were surprisingly heavy! We switched out the IPM sticky traps while we were cleaning in the greenhouse. We substituted between the colours yellow and blue because certain bugs had adapted to certain coloured traps. We found the traps just kept trying to stick to us! Our last task was putting up some double sided velcro to close the curtains in areas where it was hard to reach (around drip lines and piping). We closed the shade curtains and took one last walk around the greenhouse before closing up and heading home for the evening. It was a long weekend but we had made it!

Maintenance Blog Entry: October 4, 2013 to October 6, 2013

Sky Holbrook and Jessica Genttner

Our weekend started out slow with a minor defeat when it came to having to retrieve metal barricades for the construction crew working beside the greenhouse. I volunteered to drive the tractor but swiftly accepted that I was not ready to back up with a trailer behind me. I was able to back the tractor out of the building but quickly threw in the towel and pulled forward when I become aware of all of the surrounding traffic and obstacles. Jeff came to the rescue and directed me out of the building through the other door and between the construction barricades.

After wasting a significant amount of time in the morning with the tractor defeat Jessica and I took a time out to create a plan to make up for the time we lost. We both agreed that we would only fall even more behind if I was to attempt using the tractor again so we agreed that we would set out on foot to conquer the daylily bed; which we would soon learn would become a much larger job then either of us were prepared for. We spent the remainder of the day working on both the daylily bed and the front entrance.

Saturday morning began by the two of us returning to the daylily bed but after just a few hours we both agreed that we would accomplish more by splitting up. I remained at the daylily bed and Jessica began working on the iris bed. By the end of the second day it seemed we were no further ahead than the day before. I still wasn’t able to complete the daylilies and Jessica was only able to weed half of the iris bed. We weren’t sure if we would be able to complete our weekend practical, so we ended the day by cleaning our tools and preparing for the next day.

We both returned to our tasks in the early morning with a strong determination to meet our goals and after countless hours cutting back daylilies, shearing to even heights, racking and weeding the garden was complete. I moved onto the next assignment and began completing jobs at a much faster rate. I was able to complete the pruning of the dogwood from the path, the lilac from above the garbage can, the sumacs leafless branches, and clear the walkway in front of K building from clove current. The day was coming to an end but Jessica and I knew we had only one job left to complete; the iris bed. Working along-side Jessica in the iris bed was a perfect way to end a weekend that seemed impenetrable. We weren’t able to complete the bed but it still felt like a triumph. We packed up our tools in the RTV and took off towards the tool room to clean them for the last time this weekend.

Friday Sept 27th We began our practical with the cleaning and ultimate rearrangement of the poinsettia crop. The enormity of this task was unanticipated, as it occupied most of our day and we were (sadly) unable to attend to many of our other duties. Labelling of the various cultivars is in progress. The greenhouse was watered thoroughly, as were the elephant ears and other perennials currently residing in the outside storage area. Garden mums were installed in a square planter located outside H building near the bus stops, which involved the removal of all annuals and residual weeds. We received a small shipment from AM Cuddy Gardens, which is to be sprayed with insecticidal soap so it can join the rest of our plant material in the greenhouse. Included in the delivery were our succulents, a ficus trained by way of espalier, and a slew of other interesting flora. The rest of the weekend will be busy, as the organization of the poinsettia crop must be completed by Sunday. Saturday Sept 28th The students were off to a late start in the greenhouse today as it was the much anticipated Veteran’s Memorial Parkway tree planting. Over 400 trees were put to ground with the help of hundreds of green thumbed, community-minded volunteers. The event was a great success, and the mass planting was followed promptly by a complimentary lunch with live music. Pictures were taken and clean up commenced. Following the event, serious progress was made with the organization of the poinsettia crop. Yesterday’s plant shipment from Cuddy’s was sprayed with a diluted insecticidal soap solution, thus making it possible for them to join our collection. Tomorrow will be our busiest day, with the final clean up in the greenhouse and other tasks needing to be addressed. Sunday Sept 29th After two and a half days of thorough organization and labelling, the poinsettia crop is now in proper order. In preparation for congress, pineapple mint perennials were cut back and rooted in thirty 3” pots for later use. The weekend students created signs for various greenhouse operations and tools, including the different pot types and plant labels to assist other students’ in their greenhouse activities. Pothos plants were given new homes in hanging baskets, having been sitting in 3” pots for several weeks. Everything was given a light watering, as the day was overcast and UV levels were low. All in all, a productive weekend was had.

Doug and Mary-Jane’s Blog Entry Greenhouse Weekend Practical Sept 20th, 21st & 22nd 2013

Friday: September 20th The poinsettia crop is coming to the end of its vegetative growth period, so today we spent most of the day putting up the blackout curtains in the greenhouse. We are using the blackout curtains to create a longer dark period for the crop, by changing the photoperiod for a crop like poinsettias it will induce flowering or in this case bracts. In late September the nights start to become longer than days, using the blackout curtains will help make sure that the poinsettia are getting a soil uninterrupted dark period and prevent any light pollution from getting into the greenhouse. We were also given the tedious task of cleaning and sanitizing pots all weekend, although it may be a repetitive task it is one of the most important chores for any greenhouse. By keeping pots, tools and equipment clean and sanitized we are eliminating any potential pests or pathogens from entering the greenhouse. After everything was neat and clean we went into the greenhouse and topped off the pots that were low on soil. We finished off the day by going through the greenhouse closing checklist and locking up the greenhouse.

Saturday: September 21st Today we went through the crop removing any dead or severely damaged leaves from each plant; since these plants are going to be sold we want them looking their best for the winter sale. As we waited for the rain to die down we continued sterilizing pots and cleaning around the greenhouse. Once the rain stopped and the other group finished with the RTV we scouted around campus searching for the rest of the Colocasia (Elephant ears). After scouting out all of the Colocasia we dug them up loaded them into the RTV and brought the plants back to the greenhouse. We lined bulb crates with some old news paper and packed the plants into the baskets with some soil. This is to store the bulbs over winter so that they can be re planted in the spring. After cleaning up the mess we made from packing the Colocasia we went through the greenhouse closing checklist then locked up.

Sunday: September 22nd We started off the day by going through the opening greenhouse checklist like we did every day, then we went straight to cleaning pots. Once the other group was finished with the RTV Doug went out around campus to gather the last of the remaining Colocasia, while Mary-Jane stayed to finish cleaning the pots and pack the last of the Colocasia into bulb crates. We finished the majority of our work before lunch; we spent the rest of the day intensively cleaning the whole greenhouse. We thoroughly swept the entire floor and cleaned tables getting into every corner. We then finished off cleaning the rest of the dirty pots and stacked the clean ones in the garage. After everything was cleaned we hosed down the greenhouse floor, then once again we went through the greenhouse closing check list and locked up after everyone else.

Maintenance Practical, September 20th 2013 Eric Abram Dave Comfort Friday September 20th It would seem the weather is helping us with our weekend practical, as once again this weekend we had the pleasure of working around the weather. This began with replanting a sizable lilac tree that had been dug up earlier in the summer and had a “small root ball”, according to Jeff. This meant using the John Deere tractor to lift the pot into the trailer and bring it over to its new home behind R2. Once we choose a new home for the tree (our first choice being incorrect due to fresh grass seed) we got to work preparing a hole.

Then came removing the tree from the pot, as it turns out the roots took up almost the entire pot and it came to us wrestling the tree out of the pot and artfully spinning it to the new hole. Once we finished we amounted to a surprisingly difficult task we had to apply ferrous sulphate to some sad Pin Oaks in D Courtyard. This meant going on a bit of a hunt to first find it though and we eventually found it and applied it. Friday night we had quite the downpour, luckily we set out a plan for our tasks this weekend that meant that our work in the Conifer Garden would not have been for naught. We set to cleaning the walkways and edging along the walkways to reduce all the soil and debris from collecting and making it hazardous for anyone walking through. With good timing as I went sliding through a spot of mud just as w started. As we added more and more muck to the back of the RTV we realized just how much stuff had been collecting around the drain and fountain. 

Once we had finished with the Conifer Garden we moved into the Woodland Garden to address what we could. I began cleaning the daylilies and Eric went after the bindweed and thistles. Our lilac tree had settled nicely since being planted so we cleaned up the edge around it and gave it some mulch to keep the soil from washing away. (Insert Image 3) Ornamental grasses are fantastic in the landscape but do pose a problem when too close to a walkway, especially when they hang out and try to get friendly with everyone walking by. This was the case in the Woodland Garden with one such grass that we had to cut back, divide and replant further away from the walkway.

Eric Stacey and Jessica Shields weekend practical for September 13-15. We were given the area of the R2 residence to do some basic maintenance of the surrounding beds. We started off on Friday by gathering all the needed tools for the weekend. It was cold and very windy, much like the days to come. After completing the circle checks on both the Kubota and the John Deere we set off to complete our tasks. Jessica started the day by watering all the planters with our coveted mums that Dave and Eric A. had planted, while Eric got started on weeding, removing all the dead bindweed which was quite an eyesore. By lunch we were on a roll covering tree collars and deadheading Hostas. 

Saturday morning started off cool and in fact there was frost on the windshield before leaving the house in the morning. As Saturday rolled on Eric was sent out on the John Deere to fill gator bags for some thirsty trees while Jessica tackled weeding behind R2. Saturday afternoon we brought the rototiller out to once again shred up weeds surrounding the Yews (Taxus) behind the residence, however, this time we followed up with grass seed which Eric then watered in.

 Sunday was cool with little to no wind, forecasted was some rain but we were lucky to not get any until the work was completed. Upon arriving we discovered a little friend, possibly feasting on the fresh grass seed. 

All of the Ginkgo’s were given fresh new tree collars and we put a beautiful edge surrounding the Picea pungens garden bed. Next we buried some landscape fabric under the Yews (Taxus) while cleaning up the edges, followed up by more garbage pick-up and sucker removal from the base of the trees surrounding R2. It’s been a great weekend of work with much more to do! It’s a good thing us ambitious gardeners are on the case!

Greenhouse Practical, September 13th 2013 Eric Abram Dave Comfort

We roused ourselves from sleep and made our way to the greenhouse on a chilly windy day, initially a welcome break from the incredible heat wave earlier in the week. However, the first job of the weekend was to pull up the chrysanthemums in order to plant them in a few strategically located planters on campus. This meant we would be working outside for the lion’s share of the day. I watered the mums in preparation for planting before packing the back of the RTV with all the tools we would need, as Dave walked the campus and marked the planters we would be using so our comrade Jessica Shields working her maintenance practical wouldn’t water them before we planted.

Driving around in the open RTV proved quite uncomfortable in the wind, especially for poor Dave who started suffering allergies on top of a nasty cold, but he was a trooper and we were able to complete 13 planters each with three 3-gallon pots. We raised Jess on the radio to let her know she could finish her watering and drove back to the greenhouse to tackle our next task: crating the Cannas and Pennisetum that we had obtained from Clintar. To store the rhizomes we needed to line some bulb crates with newspaper, so I picked up a stack of the Interrobang, not realizing the issue featured an interview with yours truly! 

Taking pictures of the leaves before trimming and carefully labelling the crates with image file numbers so they could be properly identified later, we dragged all the crates into the tractor bay as the weather forecast predicted a chance of frost before closing up the greenhouse for the day. The next morning we made an unhappy discovery upon reaching the greenhouse: one of the 1-gallon mum pots had been stolen in the night! Not the best start to our day. After completing the opening checklist we moved on to the ferns, also courtesy of Clintar. The ferns were to be divided into quarters and potted up in 6” rounds to grow in the greenhouse, and the overgrown ferns had incredibly tough root balls taking up the pots completely. Luckily, earlier just this week Dave and myself had purchased Hori-Hori knives, essential tools for any perennial gardener. We were able to make short work of the ferns, sawing through and cutting them down to size with ease before potting them up.

We started printing up tags for the annual hanging basket collected at Cuddy’s before realizing there were quite a few misplaced or inaccurate tags. Dave started the painstaking task of matching everything up and checking the spreadsheet to ensure every plant was correctly identified and tagged while I set sprinklers running in the Conifer Garden and pulled the crates out of the tractor bay back outside and watered them down for them to begin drying. Coming back inside I helped Dave as we retagged the annual hanging baskets, a job that was very necessary but quite a headache and took him most of the day to complete. 

The poinsettias were fertilized and watered and the irrigation through the entire crop was carefully inspected for leads hanging out of baskets, spaghetti strands pulled loose by the rolling benches, and water running off leaves instead of into pots. After a thorough watering the irrigation was turned off and the greenhouse lines were purged of fertilizer. I started installing hardware in order to hang the greenhouse wands and brooms off the floor before we closed up shop for the day.

We opened up our final day with Dave cleaning out and sterilizing the misting chamber while I completed installing the hooks to hang the brooms and squeegees on. Afterwards we began our largest job of the weekend: cleaning the greenhouse, top to bottom. As I swept and cleaned outdoor storage and the tractor bay, Dave began the unenviable task of cleaning the ceiling of the greenhouse. To accomplish this he had brought an extendable handle from home to which he tied a wet rag. Necessity as they say is the mother of invention:

Once this was done, we set about our final run-through of the greenhouse, cleaning the floors and emptying the drain grates, wiping off benches and tables, vacuuming everywhere, cleaning down the RTV, and making sure everything was in tip-top shape. Time to get ready for our maintenance practical next weekend! Eric

Kyle Haskett/Felton Greenhouse Practical September 6th- 8th Friday: Today we promptly showed up to the greenhouse at a staggering 7:40 am. We rushed over to the security office to sign out the greenhouse key only to discover this task required very little effort. Triumphant and on schedule we headed to the greenhouse with spirit and vigour in our hearts, we would feed the crop of poinsettias even if it meant being late for the Hortfest bus! (However let’s face it Kyle and I know what we’re doing). We unlocked the greenhouse and analyzed the poinsettia crop. Desperatly needing a good drink, Kyle and I turned on the dosetron to feed them their much needed minerals. While tending to our crop we re-organized the plant benches and tried to create order from chaos. After the crop was successfully watered and our quest for today was completed we promptly locked up and headed for the bus and off to Hortfest! (GO ULMUS) After a successful day at Hortfest with the First years we returned back to our much needed positions to water the dwindling chrysanthemums. After helping Jeff carry in some new recruits from cuddies into quarantine pending sterilization we set out to water. With the brilliant advice of Jeff Rowley and Kyle using the only available watering hose, I was left with the dreadful task of “hand watering!” We left the greenhouse at 6 P.M. for some much needed sleep.

Saturday: It was day two of our weekend practical and we had high expectations for what we needed to accomplish today. We planned to deal with “Pot Mountain” and perform the 2nd pinch on the “Valentine” poinsettias. Just as we were about to embark on our noble journey we encountered a friendly face! It was J RO! Here to do her Interiorscape duties, “have fun watering” we jested as we began our day. Kyle and I started to wash each pot carefully disinfecting and eliminating all bacteria and pathogens. Kyle and I did not rest until every pathogen was destroyed mercilessly! We then moved the quarantined material to their new home on the silver shelf. Feeling quite successful with our work we sat down for a pleasant 5 minute break. The shear act of sitting was a much needed wakeup call for the weary Kyle. Our next mission had begun, pinching the “Valentine” poinsettias to ensure Pascoe’s desired height and vigour. Moving slower than a snail we carefully double checked our efforts to ensure they were up to Pascoe’s professional expectations. (A standard we all agree should be upheld) Queue lunch time, we set off to Ginos pizza with J RO after barricading the greenhouse from intruders. With pizza in our bellys and a mountain of plants on our mind we began to condense the massive amounts of plant material sitting on our class bench. Collecting and organizing the plants by genus, we commenced our upgrading. Removing the infernal 3 inch nursery pots we combined the plants into stunning 6 inch specimens. With non-stop pot washing and organizing to do! We began to clean up. Meticulously washing and sanitizing the floors to again be-rid the pathogen menace, we obtained a Mr.Clean shine. Finally locking up the greenhouse for the night we embarked on our own journeys home.

Sunday: With our final day upon us we arrived at the security office to reclaim the greenhouse key from the “KEY WARDEN” we set forth to the greenhouse for some epic re-potting operations. With techno rushing through the air (at a reasonable volume) we embarked on complete and total greenhouse order. Organizing the plants into proper pots, and trays we condensed the behemoth into a manageable monster. Clearing off our class bench would allow us to bring in our own experiments (after proper disinfecting) and have a space of our own. By maximizing our plants/sq. Ft we can in turn bring more money into the greenhouse, this will very much appease the great Pascoe. I for one am in favour of keeping the money we make within the program. With lunchtime upon us we set off to (you guessed it) Ginos pizza for another of their deliciously priced pizzas. After our feast of pizza and water, we headed back into the jungle to organize the fields of pothos! Lastly we were left with one more good sanitizing to do. The battle against pathogens was again successful; however, the war has just begun. We set off to face the “KEY WARDEN” one last time and conclude our epic quest into the jungles of the greenhouse.

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Weeks July 29th - August 9th by Dylan Howlett With the vacating absence of our fearless leader, Jeff Rowley, the horticulture technician summer work crew had a week to crack down and be responsible for completing our large list of duties free of his watchful eye. Visits from Mr. Pascoe and Lucas kept us on track, but all in all, the group did well on its own, collaborating good team work and friendly dispositions. It was nice to have Jeff return the following week. This week began with a slightly groggy Tuesday morning, having recently come back from a wonderfully long civic holiday weekend. By lunchtime we were roaring to go again!

             A Flowering Castor Bean Plant!There is a beautiful contrast between the deep green-purple foliage.

This past weekend’s duties went to J-Dawg (Jess Shields) and DMC (Dylan Mcleod). Amongst the list of tasks they were to complete, pinching of the Poinsettia crop was of utmost importance! Five plants of each cultivar we separated from the group and distinguished by blue tags. We are allowing these plants to grow very large, similar to their true size in their native habitat.

Our group had the pleasure of attaching spaghetti driplines to the table, allowing for a much easier and equally distributed watering and fertilizing of our Poinsettia crop.

Courtney and Hilary had a blast removing a portion of greenhouse shade cloth. No ladder was too big or heights too high for these girls. Safety first - three points of contact ladies!

July 25th, 2013 - Our 13th week

Our first full week taking care of the poinsettia crop began this Monday, with the finicky desert plants needing some extra care to ensure they stay in the goldilocks zone: not too much water (which risks crown rot), and not too little or else the small fellows will quickly dry out and perish. This meant going through and spot-watering each morning to make sure they all dried at roughly the same rate. Finally on Thursday the crop was in a consistent state and we were able to completely soak them again. The mums growing pot-in-pot received their final pinch and a dose of slow-release fertilizer this week.

Hilary adds tags to the new crop

Teucrium chamaedrys 'Summer Sunshine' beginning to bloom in the dwarf conifer garden

There was a lot of work to be done outside this week, as two soccer fields required new soil, seed, and sod, and the Carolinian garden and berm of the North parking lot required removal of several stumps, dead trees, and a large number of interfering branches and woody weeds. The pickaxe, chainsaw, and hand saws were all in use at various points; none could stand in the path of the mighty hort techs!

Darcy and DMC: 1. Dead cedar: 0

With the paucity of rain the past few weeks the water tanker has proved a life-saver for many of the trees and planters on campus and we have it out every day possible; but, as with every new piece of equipment, it too has its quirks. Sometimes it seems like a bit of a trickster, with a mysterious problem cropping up only to disappear moments later. Hopefully it will warm up to us soon and start taking it easy on us poor gardeners.

Good luck DMC!

That's all from us this time as we head into the final week of July and our final four weeks as summer gardeners! The summer is flying by and in too short a time it will be autumn again. We'll all miss the blooms, but probably not the bugs.

-Eric Abram

Courtney's Blog for July 15-19

July 19^th, 2013:

Courtney Preszcator-

It is a hot one this week!! I hope all of you have been staying safe and cool, here at the College we’ve been attempting to hide in the shade as much as possible! Work needs to be done though so we toughed it out! First things first, we received our Poinsettia crop on Monday and boy were we excited. This year we’re working on 1000 Poinsettia’s from 9 different cultivars: Christmas Beauty Nostalgia, Christmas Feeling Marble, Christmas Season Marble, Classic Red, Polar Bear, Pollys Pink, Prestige Maroon, Prestige Red, and last but not least Valentine. As soon as you receive any shipment you must ALWAYS check your product. You should make sure everything is accounted for and that no plant is damaged. We also like to check the roots to make sure they are a nice healthy white colour.



Look at that healthy root system!

The next process on Tuesday was for half of us to pot up 500 Poinsettia’s in the morning and for the other half of us to pot up the remaining 500 in the afternoon (in this heat the greenhouse temperature is ranging from 35-40 degrees!). Challenge accepted Jeff!

We started by filling up the pots with our media and then watering all of them down before placing the Poinsettia’s in their new homes.

Then we started placing the Poinsettia’s! Always trying to keep production moving swiftly (haha) we developed a good routine and pace for potting.

And the finished product looks great. We’re aiming for one of the best crops of Poinsettia’s to date (Go us!).

(Dylan "Darcy" Howlett and Hilary are heading up the Poinsettia crop and clearly they love their Poinsettia's!)

We like to keep all of you following us on our Blog in the loop with what we tackle on a weekly basis here on the main campus so I feel I should mention our groundhog family that has hunkered down on campus. You may drive past and see one briefly run back into their hole or maybe you have been lucky enough to witness one of them sunbathing (yes, they like to keep tanned as well!). As cute as they are they tend to make a lot of work for us! It often brings back memories of the movie Caddy Shack! There I go again getting off track! Back to business Courtney...

We have gorgeous specimens of Wisteria vines as well as a grafted Wisteria tree here on main campus and seeing as it is July it is time to prune them back! The rule of thumb is that you should prune Wisteria in March and then again in July/August. For our July pruning we took some of the longer growth, traced them back to old growth, then counted 10 buds down the new growth and made our cut. The first and most important rule to pruning is to Know What You Are Pruning! (That way you know when to prune as well as how to prune!) Majority of the team took part in this task.

(Darcy up in the Wisteria in the Woodland Garden)

(Eric Stacey and Dylan "DMC" Mcleod helping out with pruning the Wisteria Vine)

(The Wisteria vine after being pruned)

(The Wisteria tree after being pruned)

After this brutally hot week at Fanshawe we are ALL glad to be going into the weekend. The heat wave has worn us out! Make sure you’re covered in sunscreen for the weekend and if it’s cool enough take a walk to enjoy all of the beautiful plants in bloom! Oh, and for any of you wondering how our Mum crop is doing...they’re filling out nicely and seem to be happy. The roots are even starting to grow through the bottom of the pots which is always a sign of a happy plant with a very happy root system!

Almost forgot! A very Happy Birthday goes out to one of our co-workers, Eric Stacey.

(Eric opening his gift from the team!)