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.