Greenhouse Practical Weekend

January 30^th- February 1^st

Zack and Sara

          Firstly a very happy new year to you all! Hoping 2015 has started off as wonderfully for you as it has for the Horticulture Program here at Fanshawe College. 2015 kicked off with a bang as we were at Landscape Ontario’s annual expo, Congress. The whole class spent two days building a wonderful garden display. A very exciting time to apply all we have learned in our practical classes and work as a team.

        
          All the wonderful tropical plants that filled our Congress display were shipped to Toronto and returned in plastic pots. Zach and I carefully transplanted the tropical plants back to clay pots. Clay pots are the best to use as they stand up to sun damage longer than plastic. They also hold heat and moisture better.

          During Congress, Landscape Ontario had a booth set up for the Certified Landscape Technician Plant Identification testing station. In order to have this testing available, a broad spectrum of plants were required to be pushed into an early spring. This took place at Cuddy Gardens in Strathroy. Furthermore, since the testing is complete, the plants are now in the greenhouse on campus where we can take good care of them. It’s quite strange to see a flowering forsythia shrub at the end January, however, I’m not complaining.

          The weekend consisted of implementing proper IPM (integrated pest management) strategies including monitoring. We walked and inspected all crops twice daily. We recorded any findings including location of greenhouse and specific pests and plants. On top of visual monitoring there are yellow sticky traps placed throughout the greenhouse to capture flying pests. Cleanliness is a crucial part of any greenhouse operation and IPM strategy.  Pests and diseases survive and thrive off of debris, algae and weeds. We made sure to properly clean all areas of the greenhouse including the tractor bay.

          We currently have a crop of Hydrangeas-specifically Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Meritt’s Supreme’- growing on in the greenhouse. They arrived as two year old plants the first week of December. These two year old plants have great structure and will produce a minimum of 3-5 flower heads per plant. They are heavy feeders of nitrogen with their large leaves, thus the fertilization they are receiving is a 21-7-7 mix through the irrigation lines. The Hydrangeas are currently being forced into an early spring, as such, they will be flowering and ready for sale Easter Weekend. Everyone is quite excited for this plant sale and they will not last long!

          Annuals and herbs were purchased and brought into the greenhouse for future propagation. These included, spearmint, peppermint, chocolate spearmint (which tastes amazing!) and Cuban oregano. We transplanted them to larger pots. These herbs and annuals will be propagated and grown on to be ready for the annual plant sale at Cuddy Gardens. We also have a large section of water plants that we plan to propagate and have ready for the plant sale. This is because of a large demand last year for water plants. I am extremely excited to see how this propagation will be different and how to properly care for water plants.

           As our hydrangea crop requires a cooler temperature and a high nitrogen fertilizer, other plants in our greenhouse like it much warmer and have different fertility needs. The greenhouse has relatively new under bench heating so we are now able to section off different crops. The tropical, cacti and succulents are along the side bench and have the heating turned up. We also have two buckets of mixed fertilizer that the hose for the Dosatron can take from. As stated earlier the fertilizer for the hydrangeas is a 21-7-7. The rest of the plants in the greenhouse prefer a balance of triple 20 (20-20-20). Zack and I completed the math equation and with Mr. Rowley’s approval we mixed up a 60L batch of the triple 20 fertilizer.

          All in all another great weekend at the Fanshawe College Greenhouse.