Weekend Maintenance Blog

April 7-9, 2017

Julian, James and Cassandra

April 7th:  Jeff and I went over what the tasks weekend had in store for the three of us. First hour was walking around the college as Jeff explained what had to be done. While James and Cassandra were taking their CLT testing, I had an orientation that morning at 9:00am – 11:00am for my new job. Then at 11:00am I rushed to the CLT testing that was being held at the Cuddy Gardens. James was first to be done his CLT and was back on campus at 1:00pm. He began cutting the Arundo donax as well as Sedums and other ornamental grasses. He tied them up and cut them by hand until I got back around 3:30. Once I got to the college we used the hedge trimmer instead of hand cutting all the grasses. This power hedge trimmer made this a much faster process.  Overall it was a very busy Friday.   

April 8^th: In the Cool misty morning, the three of us tied up all the giant grasses in preparation for shearing. Quite a bit of raking was required to clean out the garden. Tying up the grasses made it easier and more efficient to take to the compost area. About 4 trips to the compost were needed. We managed to clean out most of the Spirea plants lining the outside perimeter of the garden. During that time we made a couple of vole friends. The Spirea plants needed much attention. So much pruning was required to rid of all the crowded branches plus most of the branches were dead. Now the plants can breathe happy with all of the moldy plant leftovers gone.

April 9^th: In the early morning of Sunday, we all finished the rest of the Spirea plants. There are more snails than ever, crowded at the base of each plant. Before lunch our focus was on all the leaves in the surrounding area. There were pounds of them to clean. Most of them were soaked so they wouldn’t blow away as easily on this windy day. As a team we figured out a system to quickly get the job done on time for lunch. One person would handle the wheel barrels to dump in the trailer while we stuffed leaves in empty ones and the buckets. We were done an area in no time. After lunch we finished the rest of the area. Now it’s as if winter never happened.