Greenhouse Duty Blog

By

Camilo B, Colton G & Austin M.

This weekend was all about the transition from the Poinsettia to the Hydrangea Crop. Early in the week we received the shipment of Hydrangeas (285 in total); we received 4 cultivars (‘Rosa, ‘Early Blue’, ‘Vanilla Sky’ and ‘Chique’). Another Important theme throughout the Weekend was to clean spotless. We worked as a team to take care of all out tasks given for the weekend and overall we had a great experience.  The Crops were walked every day, hand watering single plants in needs of it and removing dead foliage. Opening and Closing Checklist fully completed and Cash register opened and closed following procedures.

Friday, December 15^th, 2017

A major part of the day went repotting the Hydrangeas. The ‘Chique’ came in 6” pots; they remained in those, while all the other cultivars that came in 4” pots, all were repotted into 7” Azalea shallow pots. After they were organized on the benches, placing drip lines in each pot. The Poinsettia crop was walked and rearranged where it needed, to free some space for new plants coming in.
Jeff changed the Greenhouse temperature settings for the Hydrangea Crop on Priva, he also changed the EC and pH requirements on the board. 
Night = 14-15°C  Day = 18-19°C
EC = 1.5-2.5      pH = 5.8-6.2

We also re-potted the Variegated Lavender Scallops. Each leaflet has grown new mini plants, which were even shooting roots out. They were all placed into new 2.5” mini pots, labeled and placed back on the benches for future gifts.

We also cleaned up, washed the Hydrangeas pots, took the Compost to the back with the RTV and brought some new soil in to defrost over night for future use.

Today’s sales were good; a few clients came and purchased Poinsettias.

Saturday, December 16^th, 2017

Today was a fun day, it had a combination of labor and smart work. We needed some new Begonia cuttings, so we chose varieties that had not yet been used and produced a whole new tray full of cuttings. Each one of us chose one and did 16 new leaf cuttings, following the guidance of Fanshawe’s very own Mr. Vivarium. Austin Picked Plum Paisley, Colton picked Escargot and Camilo had the Gryphon Begonia.

We did some updates on the Culture Charts to explain the new tasks completed and placed the insect monitoring yellow sticky cards around the greenhouse. We left them overnight to catch our bugs. We checked through the cuttings in the misting chamber to try and repot anything that needed it. We thought the Tradescantia zebrina was ready, but it turned out not to be, we put it back in the misting chamber. Since the day before we used up all the Cacti Soil Mix repotting the succulents, we mixed a new batch for future use. Another assigned task was to maintain and water some plants indoors, specifically the 3 Ficus nerifolia in front of the Bookstore and the one Yucca plant in the library.
We started the facilities clean-up process as well, by washing the greenhouse floors thoroughly.

We also did the EC and pH reading on the Poinsettia Crop, turned out we had to do it for the Hydrangea Crop instead. Funny little detail we corrected the next day.

Sunday, December 17^th, 2017

The last day was fun. Since we realized we had done the EC and pH Readings on the wrong crop, we preceded to re do it on the right Crop. We found that our new Greenhouse Guests (the Hydrangeas) are within what we are looking for in terms of readings.
‘Chique’ à EC = 1.9 & pH = 5.5
‘Early Blue’ à EC= 2.3 & pH = 5.1
‘Vanilla Sky’à EC = 2.1 & pH = 4.8
‘Rosa’ à EC= 2.0 & pH = 5.2

We did some hand watering by individually checking which plants needed it, finding that the grasses and the congress plants needed a good soak.

Today was Clean –up Day, we made sure to put some good effort on this one as Sue said it was important, especially with the transition in crops.

We only had 1 sale, a very nice Family came in and purchased 4 mini Poinsettias.