Weekend at the Greenhouse

Greenhouse Blog - October 26-28, 2018

Andy N.  and Michael E.

On this wet and cold final weekend of October, the keys to the Fanshawe greenhouse were placed into the hands of Michael Easton (me) and Andy Nguyen. We have both worked school placements in local commercial greenhouses; however, having the independent responsibility of running the Fanshawe greenhouse facility was an experience entirely new to us. It was definitely an intimidating task, but Andy and I were excited and prepared to take on the challenges that came with this assignment.

                                   

Birdseye view of Snowcap Poinsettia

Valentine Poinsettia

Friday - 10/26/18

Our journey began on a cold October morning, making our arrival at the warm and cozy greenhouse all the better. After getting settled in and our brief meeting with the greenhouse technician; Jeff, we got to work.

We began by completing the morning greenhouse opening circle check which includes walking the crop, opening the blackout curtains, taking down greenhouse temperature and other administrative tasks. This was a first time for both of us as we are both students placed in the afternoon class (which only completes the closing checklist). However as one might guess, the opening checklist is very similar to the closing checklist, so we were fairly familiar with all the procedures.

Having completed the opening checklist, we found ourselves in front of our first big task; fertilize the crop! The current crop in the greenhouse is of course Euphorbia pulcherrima (poinsettia). Now neither of us had prepared the fertilizer mix before so we had Jeff walk us through it. To complete the fertilization of the crop we needed 2 batches of 20-20-20 mix, one with 250ppm and the other 350ppm. Fortunately there was 250ppm mix was already prepared. How ever there was no 350ppm 20-20-20 mix so it was on us to prepare some. Once the fertilizer was ready we fired up the dosatron and began the fertilization.  All poinsettias with the exception of the Ice punch and Snowcap require 250ppm fertilizer.

After completing the fertilization we felt a lot more comfortable and confident in our abilities, we rode that momentum the rest of the day! The rest of Friday consisted of transplanting (transferring a cutting with a developed root system into pots), setting sticky traps to monitor pests, and of course sales. In total we sold 5 succulents, this was a good day of business. We saw a lot of foot traffic come through our doors. We met some fun and kind people, one of which was a former horticulture technician student here at Fanshawe!

As the day came to an end we completed the closing checklist, locked the doors and returned the keys to security. Overall, Friday was a great learning experience for the both of us.

Saturday 10/27/18

We arrived on Saturday morning much differently than the previous morning. The lessons and experiences from just one day had given us a new spark in our steps. I realized personally that my confidence and overall understanding of the facility had improved tremendously. This was a great feeling that made us excited to take on the new day.

Saturday went very similarly to Friday. We completed our checklists and spent more time transplanting cuttings. Although not everything was the same, with a new day came another new experience; using the aqua mate for interior plant management. This was a nice change of pace as we were able to enter the school and water the plants located in the library as well as in front of the bookstore.

After having had our fun adventure to the library and bookstore it was back to the greenhouse for us. It was then that we completed the last of our transplanting. In total we transplanted over 200 cuttings.

                                              

Views of the completed transplanted cuttings.  

  

Before closing down the greenhouse for the day we did a little bit of pine cone collecting around the campus gardens. The purpose behind this was to supply the greenhouse with enough pine cones for the Christmas themed planters that will be on sale in the greenhouse within the upcoming months!

Sunday Oct 28/18

           

The final day of our greenhouse placement went as smoothly as one could ask for. By this point we had been fully adjusted to and immersed in the day to day operations of a greenhouse.

During our crop walk we discovered that some of the recently transplanted plants had very dry soil and were in need of some spot watering. After completing that job and the rest of the opening checklist it was time to perform a PH and EC readings test. This is done in order to determine the acidic levels (PH) and potential for productivity (EC) of the plant’s soil. This was a time consuming task as one poinsettia from each cultivar needs its own testing. To test the soil, the plant is placed in its pot on top of a measuring cup. Next distilled water is poured onto the poinsettia. The excess water that has ran through the soil is then tested with a probe to find a reading.

The EC and PH tests were the final major task assigned to us concerning the poinsettia crop. Although we were done with poinsettia work we still weren’t completely out of the woods yet. We still needed to complete some inventory updates on our collection of pots in the storage area. We took the remainder of our afternoon to do so. We then completed our final closing check of the weekend.

                                               

Andy Inspecting and collecting data from sticky cards on Sunday 

Overall the experience was enjoyable as well as beneficial for us and the greenhouse facilities. We learned time management skills in the greenhouse, improved on team work, and an overall understanding of how a greenhouse is run on a day to day basis.

Weekend Maintenance Blog

Tobias and Nicole

October 19-21, 2018

As October comes closer and closer to an end we’re getting in the chillier weather; with that comes winter prepping. Now the campus is huge, so of course we need to come in with a plan of action to make sure our gardens are cleaned up and cleared from former seasonal interests if need be within a tight timeframe. Let's be honest, winter comes and goes when it wants here, so earlier preparation is a must.  It gave us the possibility to work with more power tools and the RTV and trailer, allowing us to practice how to organize and prioritize our work, but also estimate time frame and costs that such areas take. 

           

We started off our weekend with having a run down of our areas to start working on, as well as the procedures with Jeff.  However we were quickly left to our own devices, allowing us work and start off our weekend duties, but only being a radio call away from Jeff if we had an trouble in our duties.  Starting off with prepping what tools we needed and circle checking the power ones and RTV and trailer; a small point to add, with the recent temperature drop tire pressure dropped quite a bit too when we check in both RTV and trailer wheels, so make sure to keep an eye on yours, especially if you’re driving with heavier loads!  Starting off with helping unload some new plant additions for our interiorscape for T building.  However, continuing,  we’ve added a handful of some new plants here and there, in the Conifer/ Woodland garden and on the hill by Second Street, along with a few other tasks to finish up the day and headed back to the greenhouse and tool room for clean up.

            Now, Saturday and Sunday…. boy were they busy days for us! As part of our weekend, Jeff gave us a run down of where the winter prep was to start; the Fanshawe Community Gate area; along the E, F, and H buildings, along with M building.

We started off our days with circle checking and of course prepping for what we needed for tools and going by C compound to pick up the trailer to start our day.  We did walk the site once again to see where we were going to start our task (from the E building side) and prioritize the order, what problems that we could have, possibly how much time this would take for us to accomplish, and what kind of work had to be done, besides the weeding, edging and cutting back.  This all gave us more time for either working with the power tools, learning what methods worked better for what (i.e the edging or useing the trimer to get rid of the grasses growing between the pavers) and of course getting the trailer properly hitched to he RTV, reversing with it.  Now we went through the beds, weeding, cutting back the grasses and daylilies as their season has passed, but left some other critical seasonal interests that have come back to their spotlight now that things have been cleaned up. Finishing up our day with final touches by edging the beds, line trimming the the little weeds, using the blower to clean up the beds as well as pathways from the Honeylocust trees’ leaves.

After all was said and done the weekend gave us a great experience in multitasking, problem solving (especially when the power tools didn’t want to start), and experience in using the basic needed equipment for landscape maintenance, definitely a very helpful and practical aspect of our program.

Weekend Duty Fanshawe Campus Maintenance

October 12-14, 2018

Baylee and Mitch

On Friday, we began with weeding the beds in D courtyard. Only for an hour due to the CLT testing going on that day. Saturday morning, we started with signing out the RTV and doing the circle checks before we used it. We grabbed any other tools we may have needed based on the jobs we were setting out to accomplish, as well as signing out the trailer for dump runs. Once we got to D courtyard, we started with blowing leaves and cleaning out beds of any trash. Baylee operated the backpack blower and Mitchell was using the Billy goat blower, we worked together to clean and remove all leaves from the courtyard. After we completed cleaning leaves from the courtyard, we moved on to tying up and cutting the Karl Forester grass (Calamagrostis × acutiflora 'Karl Foerster') and the Zebra grass (Miscanthus sinensis) and Juncus grasses (Juncus patens) to 6” tall for winter preparation. We then collected all of the grass clippings and brought them to the compost pile. We cut out a dead Pin Oak (Quercus palustris) as per our instructions, and brought it to the compost pile. On Sunday, We began with pruning the 4 ironwood trees (Carpinus caroliniana) to allow more visibility into the college as well as removing any deadwood. We also pruned the Thornless Honey Locust (Gleditsia triacanthos) of any dead wood as well as any overhanging braches obstructing the pathway, we also pruned all of the sucker growth low enough to be a potential issue. Once we finished all of that collected all of the branches into the tr4ailer and dumped them at the compost pile. We cut all grasses to a uniform height of 6” tall for proper winter conditioning. After we had completed pruning, we moved on to weeding all of the garden beds of D courtyard of all unwanted weeds. We collected all weeds and gave the courtyard a final finishing blow to clean up the area and brought back the rest of the debris to the compost pile. We then filled up the RTV and dropped of the utility trailer, cleaned and put away the rest of our tools. We finished the day off by filling out tree removal sheet, to ensure that the oak is no longer in our database as a living tree.

Maintenance Weekend Duty at Fanshawe

September 28-30, 2018

Aaron B. and Alex S.

Images include: before and after shots of Bindweed removal; the transplanted Ornamental Thistles; Aaron and Alex potting Cercis seedlings.

Friday

When we arrived at 8 am, Jeff walked us through the weekend’s work for about half an hour before getting ready to leave with the rest of the Horticulture program to work for several hours at Hawk Cliff Woods. We returned to the school by 1:00 pm, started to perform a circle check on the RTV, and realized it was low on diesel fuel. Jeff showed us the procedure for filling up, signing out the fuel key and recording the amount when we were finished.

We started at around 2:00 pm working on the Cornus elegantissima near the entrance to the Louise Weekes garden where we worked for the remainder of the day. During this time Alex and I (Aaron) worked to clear out any weeds and debris from throughout the garden, while still preserving some seedlings in the bed as we will be working with them in upcoming classes as a good transplanting exercise.

From there we worked to edge out the garden along the grass border and raked out the mulch to maintain the natural look in the landscape. We ended up with a fair amount of leaf debris and sticks just due to the time of year so we also had to make a couple trips to the compost pile to dump off debris. We also did the same thing we did with the Dogwoods with the Hosta bed, by edging out the garden and clearing the path of any debris. We chose to kept the Hostas because the growth was very much alive still so we saw no need to cut it down yet and it can easily be done in the early spring before the new growth.

From there we swept up the pathways for a clean finish look and raked along the grass to get any soil that may have spilled over. By this time it was time to pack up so we headed to the tool room where we washed up the tools and swept out the RTV.

Saturday

On Saturday we came in and headed over to the Louise Weekes garden where we started our day with picking weeds and raking up more leaf litter and debris. It was actually a substantial amount compared to the past day due to the fact we were working in a enclosed ecosystem that works as a wind tunnel to bring in debris and trap it along the edges of the gardens and corners.
From there we started transplanting three rose bushes and also a bunch of Onopordum acanthium which we put where the rose bushes were because they were not doing well due to lack of sunlight being right under the tree, but for the Onoprodum acanthium this is fine.

The rose bushes that were pulled up were moved back around the original rose bush that was nearby. We kept the Onoprodum acanthium because they have a interesting features unlike the Canadian Thistles and were hoping by grouping them together they can spread nice and we can have a nice patch right under the tree.

Throughout the garden were plantings of Hemerocallis. We decided to cut them back for aesthetic purposes as the flower stalks had completed their job for the year and whatever foliage that hadn’t turned brown in color had wilted and fallen on the ground. There was one exception
to the decision to remove, as there was one clump that was still upright, green, and slightly larger than the others, suggesting that it was a different cultivar

Aaron began the long, arduous job of pulling bindweed from the garden beds. I (Alex) weeded out a number of Canada Thistles buried in some Taxus and Euonymus fortunei shrubs across the path from where Aaron was working.

Before

After

Coming to the end of the day, I went to the tool room and cleaned and put the tools away. I realized that a pair of shears were missing, and eventually found them sitting on top of the compost pile.

Sunday

Upon arriving for our last day, I signed out the RTV and a radio, and started to perform a circle check on the RTV. Aaron removed pots from the sink that had been soaking overnight and started soaking another set, and then grabbed some bulb crates. We headed over to the tool room and picked up some shovels. When we got to the Louise Weekes garden, we went through the garden beds and dug up all the Cercis canadensis seedlings we could find. Although there is only one Cercis in the area, there were lots of seedlings. If I heard Jeff correctly when he was giving our jobs for the weekend, they are to be grown for sale during the summer open day at Cuddy Gardens.
Returning to the greenhouse, Aaron and I potted up the seedlings in the garage. We filled one and two gallon pots with a growing medium of 1/2 pro-mix and 1/2 soil and mulch mix. There were a mixture of pots with individual plants and pots of multiple seedlings (larger plants
typically by themselves, smaller seedlings in groups). I watered them in after potting to avoid transplantation shock.

Aaron used the backpack leaf blower throughout the evergreen garden and along the paths between the greenhouse and the entrance to the Louise Weekes garden. I did some final touch ups to the Louise Weekes garden: pulling bindweed and other weeds that we had missed, raking out the garden beds with our visible footprints, and pruning out low hanging branches of trees so they didn’t hit pedestrians in the head as they walked to class, distracted by some recent Instagram post. I then traded off with Aaron and used the leaf blower in the Louise Weekes garden, whilst Aaron picked up his leaf piles from the evergreen garden for delivery to the compost pile ;
I used the Billy Goat wheeled leaf blower on the road between the tool room, the greenhouse and the greenhouse parking lot (minus the side where cars park, as I didn’t want to send rocks flying towards those that were parked there). Aaron did the final compost run of the day, before cleaning the tool room and putting the tools away. The tool room and greenhouse garage were cleaned, and labels were made for the Cercis canadensis, which, unless my counting was off, numbered close to 90 filled pots. The RTV and radios were signed back in, we clocked out for the final time, and so thus ended the last day of our maintenance weekend duty.

Greenhouse Weekend Duty Blog October 19-21, 2018

Aaron B. and Alex S.

Christmas cactus:

            Our plant of choice for this week's blog is the Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera × buckleyi). We chose this plant because it’s an interesting topic for our class seeing as we were the ones to propagate them last year and now we get to see it full circle as they go on sale for this winter season. Christmas cactus are very easy to care for and take little watering seeing as its essential to allow soil to dry out in between watering so that you don’t end up with root rot or a fungal disease. Christmas cactus got their name for the fact that they normally flower around this time of year due to the light cycle present outside, much like their close relative the Thanksgiving cactus (you can just guess when they flower, provided you live in the United States).

Flowering Requirements:

            Preparing to get your Christmas cactus to flower should start 6-8 weeks prior to flowering season. They’re on a low light cycle, which simply means less day and more night. They need this in order to flower. Any outside or ambient lights will cause your plant to lose sync in its cycle and not be able to flower much like the poinsettia crop we work with already. Other methods I (Aaron) read on called for them to be put in a blacked out or minimal lighting room for up to three weeks prior to flowering to allow for proper new growth to form. Once flowered you must not let the soil dry out seeing as in this stage the plants require much more water due to the hydrogen being taken up through the flowers. Flowering season typically runs for 4-6 weeks and each flower tends to bloom for 6-9 days.

Off Season:

            During the off season of the plant it’s smart to store it outside in a shady area to allow for new growth and to make sure you won’t be dealing with the soil drying rapidly in the pots. Also when it comes to pruning or taking cuttings the best time is around June to encourage new growth to form. When it comes to propagating Christmas cactus it’s really easy. You just need 2-3 stem segments as on will be fully submerged in order to form new root system, and this usually takes around 4-6 weeks to allow for a healthy root system to form.

Christmas Cactus: available now for $4.99 at your local Fanshawe Greenhouse!

Major Weekend Duty Projects:

            One of the major projects we had was to go about cutting back the Canna ‘Red Futurity’ on the east side of the greenhouse and storing their root balls away in the bulb crates for next year’s grow season. We have to do this because they are only an annual plant and with our harsh winter months their root system would just not survive and so the plant would just die. To ensure this doesn’t happen we collect samples each year to preserve the plant. We do this by simply putting newspapers down to hold all the soil in place, and then will add the root balls with a light application of soil to ensure the roots don’t fry out to heavily and every so often give them a light watering to keep the roots alive but not so much that you would encourage new growth. So really in essence you just water them enough to keep them dormant during our winter months.

            Another cool one Mike had us save were the Alocasia odara, Upright Elephant Ear. They were cool seeing as he was telling me (Aaron) they are a distinct cultivar out of Florida and so that’s why he wanted to preserve them. But what I found really cool about them was the fact that he had me leave the foliage on the plants to allow for it to naturally die back. This was to allow for the plant to take back in all its nutrients from the leaves and store it into its root ball for the following year’s growth. I just find this neat because say if in nature this plant went through some environmental stress and had to die back, it would still have the chance to bounce back the following year or when the environment was suited again for growth. Now I call that the ultimate hibernation.

            On top of the winterization of the root balls mentioned above, we also winterized 11 other plants. Unlike the root balls, we brought in sections of the plants which will continue to grow throughout the winter. We placed them in hanging baskets, packed them in with Pro-Mix as needed, pruned them back (some quite heavily), and then placed them in the greenhouse where they will be hanging from the rafters until they are ready to plant outside again next year.

            As well as our main crop of Poinsettias, the second year Horticulture students from the past couple of years have been growing Poinsettia standards. These are Poinsettias that, instead of being sold at Christmas, have been grown on towards their tree form. The current crop are about 2-2 1/2 feet tall from the soil, and are being trained to grow their leaves and flowers in a ball on top of their main stem. I (Alex) attempted to prune some of the extra growth to clean up the ball form of the foliage and was somewhat successful, however there is one standard that will need an extra year (at least) of growth before sale as I accidentally removed half of the foliage in a wrong snip of my secateurs.

            When we arrived on Friday morning, we were shown a number of containers in the greenhouse that contained wildflower seeds that had been drying. They were bagged up and labelled, to be put into storage for future planting and/or study.

Greenhouse Weekend Duty Blog: October 12th-14th, 2018

Felix C. and Ellyn H. 

Succulent Planters

We found a beautiful way to display succulents was by carefully arranging them in
medium sized clay pots. We filled half the pot with greenhouse media that contains
mycorrhizae, then we potted three different and distinct succulents that fit and
contrasted well together. Lastly, we finished off the pots by adding decorative stone
as the top layer giving it an eye appealing look.

How to care for succulents:
- Surprisingly succulents need a fair amount of water to thrive but not as frequently as most indoor plants.
- They prefer to have their roots completely soaked and dried out rather quickly.
- Daily watering not recommended. Try the soak and dry method instead for optimum growth.

After we finished the decorative potting we were left with a few cuttings that fell off the succulents. So we felt it was a good idea to grow some new plants from the cuttings! Who said compost when you can possibly get beautiful new succulents with the proper propagation and controlled climate conditions.

With Canada's winter rapidly approaching, preparation for winter storage is very important. A lot of the annual plants around campus won’t make it due to the harsh cold winds in the winter season. So
in order to help them survive for the next year so that they can grow and bloom again we store them in the greenhouse for the winter months. We begin by carefully pulling out the roots or bulbs of the desired plants. Then we prepared a place to store them with some potting media, ensuring that they would receive sufficient water to stay alive. In this case we used crates and on the inside we covered them with newspaper. That way none of the media can fall out and it avoids messy media all over the floor.

Many of the annuals on campus also won’t make it through the snowy weather and cold frosts. As a way to preserve them we prune them back and store them in the greenhouse alongside the thriving poinsettias and rest of the plants. Doing this ensures that we will still be able to grow beautiful plants for the next year. By us storing a lot of these annuals it ensures that we maintain a healthy stock inventory for future plantings.


Fertilizing: A very important factor in greenhouse production and overall crop production. As weeks went by the poinsettias have been fertilized on a daily basis while making sure that the media is dried before applying another watering. But even through fertilizing and regular waterings there were 2 cultivars that seemed to show some discolouration along the margins of the leaves. Our professor Sue Millar and Fanshawe’s Horticulture Technician, Jeff Rowley came to the conclusion that there was a nutrient deficiency and decided it would be best to “kick” up the formula by increasing the 250 ppm (Parts per million) to 350 ppm of fertilizer that those two specific cultivars were receiving. Walking the crop in this matter becomes a crucial step in monitoring the poinsettias for any drastic changes.
This is where the fun part began as we got the opportunity to do some chemistry. In the midst of this change Ellyn and I learned how to properly increase the number of grams of 20-20-20 to achieve the desired 350 ppm. The 20-20-20 formula stands for the percentages of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium in the fertilizer. The fertilizer is added to the crop through its irrigation, and so we had to dissolve a calculated amount of granular concentrate in water and connect it to the Dosatron irrigation system. Gloves, an apron, and eye protection are required to mix fertilizer, as well as a scale. We are fully weighed the concentrate and mixed 10 litres worth of fertilizer that will be further diluted at a ratio of 1:100 (1 part fertilizer solution to 100 parts water) by the Dosatron. This system makes it easy to ensure that all plants are getting a predetermined amount of nutrition in a certain amount of water optimal for their development. Climate Control Concern: Climate control is an essential factor in every greenhouse operation. Even subtle changes can sometimes have dramatic effects on the health of a crop, especially when the greenhouse is competing against an adverse climate outside. When we arrived on Saturday morning, we discovered that the temperature in the greenhouse had dropped significantly overnight, and that it was no longer within the desired 22-24 degrees. The plants were not showing any visible signs of distress, but we feared the drop in temperature might affect them before too long. Further inspection revealed no breakages in glass or open vents, however the heating pipes below the benches were cold. To help troubleshoot, we called Horticulture Technician Jeff Rowley. He helped us interpret the computer monitoring software and guided us through checking the status of the water boiler (alive and well). We reset the auxiliary fan in the greenhouse to circulate the air at the temperature it was at, and that helped distribute air and heat coming from the peripheral heaters. A combination of this circulation, the removal of the shade
curtains, the peripheral heat, and the emergence of the sun from behind clouds allowed the temperature to steadily increase until it was within the acceptable range.

Dividing Perennials

Dividing plants is an excellent (if not the best) way to multiply your perennials quickly, easily, and cheaply. For the ever expanding gardens of Fanshawe, it’s essential. This weekend, we dug up and divided 4 types of ornamental perennials from large clumpings, to be nurtured over the winter in the
greenhouse and planted elsewhere in the spring. Our selections were:

Salvia nemerosa ‘Caradonna’ (Caradonna sage), Pycanthemum muticum (mountain mint), Imperata cylindrica ‘Red Baron’ (Japanese blood grass), and Agastache ‘Cotton Candy’ (cotton candy  hummingbird mint). The sage and mints created a fantastic smell and while digging them up, we noticed they were favourites of pollinators.

Bracts on the Poinsettias

What many people don’t realize about the poinsettia plant is that the vibrant colour it’s known for comes from the leaves surrounding the flower (called ‘bracts’), rather than the flower petals. In fact, the flower itself is tiny and fairly unremarkable and hence often goes unnoticed next to the beauty of the bracts in full colour. They also serve an evolutionary purpose- they act as an attractant for pollinators. Humans are also attracted to them, and they have become a Christmas and holiday season staple because of these striking festive colours. Yet, because the plant is native to Mexico and people want to see them in full colour in mid-winter, the plant needs some help to decide to colour its bracts (which are green in the off seasons). Greenhouse growers employ something called a ‘photoperiod’ to achieve this. With the poinsettias you know you have initiated the ‘photoperiod’ when you start to notice the venation turning a vivid red (as shown in the picture).

A photoperiod refers to specific duration of time in which the plant is exposed to light or darkness (to mimic the light patterns  provided by its natural climate in its colourful season). Many greenhouses, Fanshawe included, achieve the photoperiod by using a combination of automatic and manual shade curtains to physically block access to light. Each of our duties began and ended with the drawing and closing of the shade curtains. Bracts on a few red cultivars and a white one are already beginning to turn, reminding us that our time and effort are not in vain, and results are fast approaching!

Weekend Duty Blog - Lauren Friesen & Geoff Trenholm

Friday September 28, 2018

Friday was interesting; Geoff and I were only in the greenhouse for an hour before we had to leave for our field trip to volunteer at Hawk Cliff Woods. Then we were back in the greenhouse from 1 to 5PM.

We started the morning by opening the blackout curtains. As Tobias and Nicole mentioned in their blog post last weekend, the Euphorbia pulcherrima (poinsettia) are at that stage in development where we growers begin to manipulate their day and night environment. We want it to mimic the photoperiod needed for them to start flowering in time for winter holidays. Basically, poinsettias need 12 hours of light exposure, and 12 hours in the dark. This mimics their native environment on the equator in Mexico.

The association of poinsettias with Christmas comes from an old Mexican legend of a girl too poor to give a gift for Jesus’s birthday. An angel inspires her to collect seeds from the side of the road, and to place them before the church altar. Miraculously, red flowers bloomed from the weeds and became poinsettias.

Once we got back from the field trip, it was time for cuttings. (It’s always time for cuttings.) Jeff Rowley popped in and out while we worked, once with a new assignment, courtesy of Mike Pascoe. We were to sort, label, and lay out to dry a bunch of seeds Mr. Pascoe has collected from around the country.

Jeff showed us how to close up the till before he left. One of our classmates noticed little pawprints in the dust behind the printer; is there a squirrel in here?

Saturday, September 29, 2018

We opened the greenhouse for the day without any troubles, and then it was onto more cuttings for me! And then some leaf cuttings! But not just any leaf cuttings, Sue Millar had me do split vein cuttings. Instead of shoving half the leaf in the soil, I very carefully sliced the main veins of the back of large begonia leaves before pinning them flat into the soil. Sue says this is the slowest form of propagation we’ve done yet.

While I did that, Geoff began work on Pascoe’s seed collection. He ran into some trouble when some of the bags were either unlabeled, or else vaguely labeled, but he managed.

As it turns out, there was indeed a squirrel in the greenhouse. He scurried behind me to hide beneath the cabinets between the bathrooms. I opened the garage door, propped open the door to the garage, grabbed a squeegee and moved one of the cabinets so I could get underneath it. I succeeded in spooking the squirrel out, and does he run away from the scary lady with a stick? Does he run out the door to freedom? Of course not! The silly creature ran at me instead, jumped over the squeegee, dodged around me, and climbed up the ladder into the loft. I decided to leave him be.

After lunch, I finally finished the cuttings. Geoff and I tried again to corral the squirrel out the door, but he hid in the radiator across from the bathrooms instead. So we made a compost run and fueled up the RTV. The gate then refused to close, of course. The security guys teased me about “breaking it.”

Finally we went through the closing routine. The squirrel stayed hiding in the radiator, presumably until after we left.

Sunday, September 30, 2018

It was cold and rainy this morning, but at least the chain didn’t fall off my bike on the way to the greenhouse like yesterday. I hadn’t seen him yet, but I knew the squirrel (whom I’ve taken to calling George the Directionless in my head) was still in the building.

We opened up the greenhouse and set to washing the floors. I managed to scrub some of the algae off, but I didn’t want to flood the floors too much. Geoff finished washing up between the aisles while I started digging up some plants from the side of the greenhouse. They’re Canna ‘Red Futurity’ and we’re pulling them up to dry the bulbs in crates to sell next year. After break I did the same for the Alocasias (Elephant Ears) across from the greenhouse.

Our last plant job was to dig up some Pennisetum alopecuroides, (Fountain Grass) split them, and report them to be set on the heated mats in the greenhouse. We used steak knives to split them, of all tools.

Today we washed everything, from the greenhouse floors to racks to loads of pots. We had managed to complete all of our assigned tasks, except for the optional extra task of doing yet more cuttings, this time of the Lavender Scallops (Bryophyllum fedtschenkoi ‘Variegata’). There are so many in the greenhouse and they’re getting overgrown; they do need to be worked on, but after the seemingly-endless amount of cuttings we did this weekend, I can’t say I’m too disappointed we didn’t get to these!

Afterwards

Overall, working in the greenhouse this weekend was hard work, but oddly serene work as well. It’s very repetitive, in an almost soothing way...when there isn’t a silly rodent running around, anyway.