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.