Weekend Maintenance Blog

Emily and Jamieson

 

Friday October 16^th , 2015

             Jamieson and I began our weekend duty at the Fanshawe College gardens separately. Jamieson, along with half of our class, spent Friday morning in Strathroy at Cuddy Gardens completing 5 stations of the CLT certification. I spent the morning at Fanshawe with Jeff going over what Jamieson and I were going to be doing for the weekend. We took the RTV and drove over to Residence 2. This was where we were going to spend the majority of our weekend, cleaning up the gardens.

            I too then had to make my way to Cuddy Gardens to complete the first portion of the CLT certification. Myself and the rest of the afternoon group had to be at Cuddy Gardens for 11:30 for registration. We all then got to enjoy the delicious lunch that Landscape Ontario provided for us!

             As expected everyone was pretty nervous for the CLT testing. Overall the day went well, apart from the cold and wind in the afternoon. The judges were always extremely friendly, and helpful when they could be. Michael, Tim and Lucas did a fabulous job preparing for the testing and keeping our spirits up during the day. You could tell Tim enjoyed enhancing his mega-phone skills and keeping us in line.

            Jamieson returned to Fanshawe after the lunch, to work for part of the day. He spent the afternoon digging up some grasses and canna lilies from some of the gardens and planters around the campus. The cana lilies are especially important to bring inside as they cannot survive our harsh cold winters. They enjoy a much warmer, more tropical climate.

 Saturday, October 17^th, 2015

             We began the day circle checking the RTV and tractor and trailer, as we would be needing it for the day. We then headed to R2 to begin cleaning up the garden beds. The hostas were the first on our list to tackle. Since we have enough work to do in the spring, we cut back the hostas now. That took up most of our morning, then we began cleaning up the aftermath , which was a lot!  We had filled the hydraulic trailer with mostly hosta leaves and stalks.

 

              In the afternoon we finished cleaning up the hosta leftovers and some leaves. We did leave a good portion of the leaves behind, as they provide a good nutrient source for the lawn and the garden.  We made sure not to leave big piles of leaves, as they would cause the grass underneath to die. The two flower beds near the entrance we edged and weeded it in preparation for mulching the next day. At the end of the day we gave the greenhouse crew Yujing and Kate a hand with the shade curtains for the poinsettias blackout period.

 Sunday, October 18^th, 2015

 

 

            The day began with a cold morning, and snow! We even had to pull out our snow brushes to scrape our cars off before we came.  In order to continue our job from yesterday, we signed out both tractors and one of the RTV's to use for mulching. We had a bit more cleaning up to do in one of the beds before spreading the mulch. After that mulching took up most of our day, as we had to make many trips to the other side of the campus to our compost area, which is also where we keep our mulch. Mulching in the autumn helps provide extra insulation, as well as keeping the weeds at bay in the following spring. It again also saves valuable time in the spring mulching in the autumn.

 

              Though Friday was stressful, and the weekend was cold. We all kept up our positive energy to keep working and get the job done! Jamieson has already completed his greenhouse weekend duty for the semester, I have still yet to complete mine. However, I am looking forward it, and all the learning I will be doing!