Weekend Maintenance Blog - September 29 - October  1, 2017

Nicole M. and Rebecca J.

This weekend at Fanshawe College was extremely rainy, soggy but warm which made it hard to believe that we were already beginning to prepare the campuses gardens for winter. This weekend gave us the opportunity to learn how to create winter interest in a garden using existing plants, such as ornamental grasses and perennials. We also gained experience by using power tools such as power shears, which we had a lot of fun using!

 Friday we had a shorter day due to CLT testing that took place in the morning. Which was an exciting experience for all of us entering the world of horticulture.  We began our shift by walking the gardens. We were given the gardens in front of Fanshawe's registrar's office and M building. We discussed what needed to be done in these gardens to have them ready for winter and made a plan on what we could achieve over the weekend and what we would prioritize. From there we had little time left so we started by cutting back perennials and weeding in front of the registrar's office. As we came to the end of the day we disposed of our compost and we did our first tool clean up, ensuring everything was cleaned and put away accordingly.

Saturday was a big day. This is where a huge chunk of our work took place. We prepared the garden outside of the registrar's office and D building by tying back all grasses into tepee’s which made it really easy to collect all of the debris once they were cut down. While cutting the grasses down we made sure to make sure they had more of a “mound” formation as this creates winter interest. We also cut back the masses of Salvia in front of F building as well as weeding. We hand groomed the Bergenia as we decided that it gave the garden some interest as far as colour and texture.

Sunday we were in for some severe weather.  It was very windy and we had torrential downpours and even hail at one point during the day, but we had a lot to do still so once the weather calmed down we got back to it. We finished off doing some weeding, cutting and raking up the debris in front of F and M building. At the end of the day we cleaned up our tools and took our last tool inventory. By the end of this weekend we both learned time management is a big factor in our industry and it is key to make it a priority.