Weekend Duty Blog: Getting ready for Christmas, Congress and Hydrangeas


Rebecca and Connor


Friday


First thing on Friday morning we met with Jeff in the greenhouse. He explained the opening circle check for the greenhouse and outlined some of our duties for the weekend. While its hard to give up your weekend for school it seemed really nice this time of year to be in a warm tropical feeling greenhouse while the weather outside is cold and snowy. On our first day of work we spent a lot of time walking the crop and inspecting the poinsettias. We found several that were wilted: some of them were under watered and it was nice to see them return to their healthy form the next day after being properly watered.

One of our main tasks for the week involved condensing the poinsettia crop to as few benches as possible to free up space for the new crop of hydrangea plants that will be arriving during the week. Hydrangeas are popular in spring and around Easter time so it may seem early to be bringing them in so early but it takes months to get the small immature plants to a good size and for them to have flowers that will catch the eye of customers. Growers need to know how long their crops take to flower and be of a good size and to time this with popular times of the year for flower sales. No one is going to be interested in buying a poinsettia in January and very few customers care to grow them on in their homes to will likely buy one every year, meaning holiday plants can be lucrative for greenhouse owners. Considering the trend that the Christmas season seems to begin earlier and earlier every year it would be interesting to know if growers have had to change their yearly schedules to accommodate this.

On Friday we sold quite a lot of poinsettias to Fanshawe students and staff. We also sold a few succulent arrangements. A lot of what we sold was going to be given as Christmas gifts. In coming years it might be interesting to sell other plants intended as gifts, such as succulents or Christmas cacti in holiday themed pots or packaging. A lot of people were looking for gifts but were worried the poinsettias were too large, required too much watering and attention, or would be a hazard for pets so it might be good for sales to have something different to offer them.

Saturday

On Saturday we removed the water emitters from the drip lines on the empty benches and began soaking them in bleach and water to sterilize them. It is important that these emitters and cleaned before the new crops arrive so that any germs or diseases are not transmitted. We also began cleaning up any dead material from the hanging baskets as the plants in flower will be used for Fanshawe’s display at congress. We did not do very many sales on this day so we spent a lot of time spacing plants, cleaning, and doing a lot of cuttings from the stock baskets.

Sunday

On the Sunday morning we had arrived at the Fanshawe Greenhouse surrounded by snow which made the Greenhouse look much more like Christmas with all of the vibrant coloured poinsettias popping out and contrasting against the fluffy white bed of snow. After following the daily opening procedures, we decided it would be fun to start the day with doing some postage stamp-style leaf cuttings on some of the various types of Begonias we have in the greenhouse including the ‘Metallica’, ‘River Nile’, as well as the ‘Irene Nuss’ varieties of Begonia.

We had watched a very brief video posted by a previous Fanshawe Horticulture student on some techniques on taking Begonia cuttings, and had learned a technique of applying paper clips to pierce the leaf cutting so that it can be pressed against the media to help it to root-out much better. After all the cuttings were completed, we decided to once again work on some of the spacing within the Greenhouse compacting both variegated varieties of the poinsettia crop onto one bench as to free up even more space for the upcoming hydrangea crop that is going to be introduced into our greenhouse very soon. With more benches open we decided to remove and sanitize the emitters on the free benches preparing them for the upcoming crop. We had also watered our perennial section in the greenhouse giving it some additional fertilizer to boost both the strength and look of these plants so that they appear their best for the upcoming show at Congress located in Toronto. Sunday was our slowest day for customer foot-traffic, but fortunately we sold one of our Christmas styled planters giving us the opportunity to design and build another one to introduce to the store front. We spent a good amount of time on the Sunday cleaning and sanitizing the greenhouse to be ready for the following week.

The end.


:)