Weekend greenhouse blog - Carlee and Harrison

November 23-25, 2018

With the week beginning with chilly snowy weather, we arrived at the greenhouse on Friday morning with a warmer breeze in the air. We arrived at 7:50 and began getting organized to accomplish the specific set of tasks we had been assigned. Jeff gave us an outline of what was expected of us for the weekend and answered the questions that we had for him. He also informed us that there was probably going to be lots of sales because he had been noticing larger and larger numbers of customers throughout the week. He also gave us a list of poinsettia deliveries that needed to be done.  We then jumped into starting our opening checklist. I began opening the blackout curtains while Carlee walked the crop, inspected for any problems in the greenhouse and determined if the crop needed watering by feeling the soil. We then checked the culture chart to see if the poinsettias had been watered with fertilizer. We determined that it did need to be watered with fertilizer so Carlee began mixing 5L of all-purpose 20-20-20 fertilizer at 250 ppm. We activated the dosatron and as I checked the drip lines to ensure all the poinsettias were getting watered, Carlee began creating custom planters. After I was done examining the drip lines and repairing the broken lines I found, I began to prepare for sales. I placed the two signs out, grabbed the cart with the wreaths and checked to ensure we had a one-hundred dollar float. A couple minutes after we started getting a large number of customers coming into the greenhouse, we then spent a good majority of our time helping customers and wrapping poinsettias while also simultaneously trying to work away at our tasks. In the afternoon on Friday I began delivering roughly 21 poinsettias to two separate offices on campus while Carlee kept making sales and working on custom planters for customers.

As the day began to draw to a close we started to clean up, finished up the closing checklist and cashed out our sales.

                We arrived at the greenhouse on Saturday with a dark gloom of showers outside. We started by walking the crop and opening the blackout curtains. We then did the E.C and pH readings which can be found in our poinsettia culture chart. Then I began moving the valentine from the last bench to a more centered spot in the greenhouse. 

Then I moved 23 Christmas Wish Red and 22 Marbella which are for delivery in December to the last bench. 

While Harrison rearranged the poinsettias inside the greenhouse, I set to work trying to assemble the large wreath for Cuddy’s, this turned out to be much more difficult than I had anticipated and will more than likely need some 3rd party adjustments. It also took up a majority of the day. While I plucked away at the wreath Harrison was busy making some ornaments to be used on the smaller wreaths, and turning cuttings from 4” pots in to stock baskets.
After lunch we did our interiorscape and planted some poinsettias into the planters out front of the bookstore to help advertise them in the greenhouse. We wanted to use some of our more unique cultivars like ‘Red Glitter’ and ‘Marbella’ but with the combination of sales and orders the unique cultivars are dwindling quickly. The rest of the day was spent battling the large wreath, making some stock baskets and tidying up.

                Sunday came and went with a moderate pace. We came in and opened more quickly than before having gotten used to the routine over the previous couple days. While Harrison spot watered anything that looked overly dry,  I spent the morning reorganizing some of the sale succulents and poinsettia standards and minis on the unmoving, perimeter bench. As previously mentioned, the ‘Red Glitter’ and ‘Marbella’ Poinsettias are lowering in numbers but we do still have quite a few of the interesting ‘Valentine’ Poinsettias, which look like a mix between a poinsettia and a rose bush. 

During Harrison’s reorganization over the weekend we were able to bring some of the ‘Valentine’ poinsettias closer to the front of the greenhouse in hopes that these special guys will get some more attention. Harrison and I took some time in the afternoon to move some of the cuttings from our germination station and put them into 4” pots to be used later for our stock baskets. After lunch we both made an attempt at putting together some wreaths which we will have available for sale in the greenhouse along with the others that are already complete.

                Overall it was a good weekend in the greenhouse and one of the last greenhouse weekend duties for our class this semester. We are beyond excited and proud to see our poinsettia crop selling as well as they have been so far and hope they continue to do so. Our class has put a lot of time, effort and most importantly love into these plants, and we are so excited to share them with you.

Fanshawe College Greenhouse Weekend Duty

November 16-18, 2018

Lisa N.

It was a cold and snowy morning as one of the last Greenhouse Weekend Duty shifts got underway at Fanshawe College this passed weekend. I began my workday at 8AM, as Jeff and I sat down to discuss the protocols and procedures for the next few days. Additionally, we discussed the tasks that he wished to have completed and I added them to my pre-existing tasks that Sue had assigned me earlier in the week. After asking questions for clarification, I prioritized my tasks for the rest of the day and weekend as Saturday was the Fanshawe College Open House.

We anticipated many visitors throughout much of Saturday thus it was imperative that large tasks involving the Poinsettia crop be completed on the Friday. My first task was to use the Opening Checklist so that I could be as thorough as possible when tending to the crops. I assessed the crop to see if it needed to be watered and checked the Poinsettia culture chart as well. The crop had been watered two days prior but needed a watering and fertilization. After getting a quick refresher on the calculation for mixing fertilizer, I made up 5 gallons worth of 20-20-20 fertilizer and watered the crop. I was then briefed on the POS system, so that I could be prepared for Poinsettia sales the following day.

                     

      

                                

In preparation for the Open House, I began working on removing all dead/chlorotic foliage that was on the Poinsettias, making them look very presentable. Dead foliage was also removed from the benches at this time. All labels on each plant in the greenhouse were organized facing forward and straightened. Any plant that appeared to not be doing well was composted as well.

Once lunch was complete and I had propagated some succulents, I really wanted to focus on cleaning up the greenhouse. The potting room was thoroughly cleaned which included a dusting of the propagation chamber, wiping down of all surfaces, the floor was swept and pots were washed and put away.

By the end of the day we had yet to have any Poinsettia sales however, I was lucky enough to have two customers come in. I was able to inform the customers of the different cultivars that we had to offer and discuss our program briefly. Once the customers left, I began my closing checklist making sure that everything was perfect for the following day.

Moving into Saturday, I knew it was going to be busy and I was fortunate to have Emily and Nate come in at 8AM with me to accomplish some more cleaning tasks. We cleaned up the tractor bay, making it spotless. While Emily stayed in the greenhouse, Nate and I transported a generator to the front of the school for the Open House and moved the tractor in front of the greenhouse to highlight some of the equipment that we get to use in the program. Once all the volunteers were settled into the greenhouse, we began making custom Christmas planters and wreaths. We were able to highlight some of our skills as prospective students came in to visit the greenhouse and chat about our program. It was a great experience to get to meet future students and talk about why we are passionate about our program.

Once the Open House was done for the day and the crowds died down, Emily and I went inside to perform interiorscape in front of the bookstore and inside the library. This was my first time doing interiorscape. Some of the plants are quite large and so it was difficult to get them fully dusted and have their dead foliage removed. When I returned from interiorscape, Nate kindly showed me how to perform pH and EC readings on the poinsettia crop, another first for me! This task brought us into the last hour of the day where Emily and I began the closing checklist and closed the POS system together.

Sunday morning came early but I was again lucky to have Michael join me for the first half of the day. We began with the Opening Checklist and assessed the crop. We determined that the crop needed to be watered and fertilized. We mixed more fertilizer and began watering. During this time, we walked the crop again to see if any plants were not being adequately watered. We found a couple, watered them and also moved them to the front of the bench so that students could be aware that these plants maybe needed some extra care.

Later in the morning we went through the cuttings in the propagation chamber to see if any could be transplanted. However, we made the judgement call to leave them as many had not fully rooted out just yet. After this task, Michael and I parted ways and performed our own tasks. He worked on cutting off the new growth of the Canna generalis under the benches while I worked on creating a care guide for succulents to be given to customers. Once Michael left for the day, I created a custom Poinsettia planter that we are hoping to sell to the public for the upcoming holiday season. For the rest of the day, I focused again on cleaning to make sure the greenhouse was spotless for Monday morning.

Christmas is Coming!

Weekend Duty Blog for November 9th - 11th, 2018

Nate and Claire

There were signs everywhere on duty in the Greenhouse this weekend that Christmas is on it’s way! On Friday morning we were greeted with the first snowfall of the season and the snow continued through most of the day. Our morning walk of the crop found all the poinsettias to be colouring-up beautifully, so we made sure to have all our poinsettia wrapping materials on standby in case a customer wanted to buy one ahead of our official poinsettia sale. In the meantime, we watered the whole poinsettia crop and an hour later took pH and EC readings of a selection from each cultivar. We found one ‘Christmas Wish Red’ plant to look a little dry and wilted, so we took extra readings for it to compare with a perkier one of the same cultivar and found that the wilted plant had a much lower EC value. To correct this, we spot-watered the plant to ensure it got its proper dose of fertilizer and returned it to its bench. In the afternoon, we were tasked with helping to re-pot a gigantic False Agave that had been donated to the program from Parkway Gardens. While it was too bad that the plant’s original planter had to be sacrificed in the process, the Agave seemed much happier to have more room to grow. Our final big task for the day was to propagate a huge selection of succulents harvested from the collection at Cuddy Gardens. We broke the plants apart into leaves and tops and set them in pans to callous, which will prevent bacteria and disease from entering the plant once its planted. We closed our afternoon with our first poinsettia sale, and promises of many more to come.

On Saturday we switched from propagating to germinating, and sowed a collection of seeds from Jardin botanique Alpin in Switzerland. Some of these require many weeks to begin growing, so hopefully we will start to see growth after the Christmas holidays. After completing the interior plant care route, we dove into holiday prep by harvesting pine cones and fronds of Euonymus, white pine, yews and cedar for our upcoming wreath making event. With a few ribbons around the fronds’ containers and some imitation snow to frost the windows, the greenhouse is beginning to look really festive! Sunday was Remembrance Day, so we observed our moment of silence in the morning before bedazzling some of our collected pine and spruce cones with spray glitter. While those dried, we got started planting our succulent pieces. It took us most of the day, but by the end we had nearly filled all the available space left in the greenhouse with new baby plants! With the poinsettia sale approaching, the baby plants will only have to crowd in a little bit longer - another sign that Christmas is coming!

Greenhouse Weekend Duty Blog

By: Baylee and Mitchell

On Friday, we started with our opening checklist and opening the blackout curtains. Everything seemed in order with the checklist so then we met with Jeff for further instructions and he gave us a list of tasks to complete over the weekend. Once we had finished talking to Jeff we collected Cardoon seeds out of their pods, jarred them, labeled them and put them in the fridge. We went for lunch then walked the crop, found nothing of concern. We opened up the point of sale system during hours of business on Friday. We then pruned and potted the Geraniums and Easy Wave Petunia in sq. 1L pots as well as taking cutting from the Easy Wave Petunia using sanitized secateurs and potted the Easy Wave Petunias.

 We then went on to re-potting the succulent arrangements. After re-potting, we closed the point of sale system before we started to clean up for the day. We circled checked the RTV and did a dump run of compost, pruned and potted Canna’s into crates and then did our closing checklist and closing of the curtains. We couldn’t return the key due to the key being signed out by an unknown person so Jeff locked it for us.

Saturday morning, we got the key from security, unlocked the greenhouse and did our opening checklist and opening of the curtains. We started with propagating succulents and that took up most of our day. We noticed some Mealy bugs of the Coleus that we were going to propagate so we separated them from the rest of the greenhouse and inspected nearby poinsettias for any mealy bugs, we did not find any.

         

We took the watering tank and watered plants in front of bookstore and in the library. We made labels for all cuttings we did, as well as the non labelled flats of lavender scallops. We repotted some existing succulents due to the media being too low. We also repotted the Royal Poinciana due to it having a heavy lean to one side. We cut out dead straw from grasses with sanitized secateurs. After we had most of what we wanted done for the day we started cleaning up and doing the closing checklist as well as closing the curtains. Once we had finished cleaning up, we locked up the greenhouse and we returned the key to security.

For the last day, Sunday, we started with fixing the propagation chamber; its hose for the sprinklers was detached, causing water to not go through the misters. We ran the misters for a few minutes to restore proper moisture and humidity. We then started with the opening checklist and opening the blackout curtains and walking the crop and then finished labeling anything unlabeled. We determined that the crop needed a watering, so after consulting the culture chart we decided to do a flush of all plants including mini’s and standards, we then water any other baskets that may have need it.

After the watering we cleaned up the greenhouse staging area and waited roughly an hour before taking pH and EC reading from all cultivars of poinsettias in the greenhouse. We also cut the dead foliage off of the Colocasia with sanitized secateurs.

  

After cutting dead foliage we cleaned up leaves and put into compost. We organized all pots in the tractor bay, we then took everything out of the tractor bay, swept and washed the floors. We washed all of the equipment and put it all back in the tractor bay. We clean greenhouse floor, cleaned up and washed all tools, pots, trays, and then washed the floor in the greenhouse staging area. We then did our closing checklist and closed the blackout curtains and then returned the key to security.