Spring Is In the Air
Fanshawe College Greenhouse Weekend Duty
February 22-24, 2019
Carlee H. and Felix C.

            Despite all of the freezing rain and ice covering the city, spring is poking its head around the corner. The Fanshawe greenhouse has been hard at work preparing for the incoming warmer seasons. If you happen to come into the greenhouse for a visit you’ll notice that we’re getting pretty full with a nice variety of different plants, almost all of our benches have something interesting to see.

Spring is a busy time for us here at the greenhouse and it takes a lot of preparation. Now is when we start watering our overwintering plants such as our Cannas and Alocasias that had been cut back and stored in the late fall seasons, starting the watering now will have them ready for transplanting into outdoor planters around the school in the spring and summer months. We have also started to see some orders come in from some of our contract customers, such as the Western Fair. For this, students have been busy crafting hanging baskets of Petunias and Dichondra that will look beautiful as they start to fill in more, currently in their baby stages they admittedly look a little bit silly. 

            The cuttings that we took from parent plants such as different species of Coleus, Geranium, Begonia, etc. back in the fall are filling out nicely and a lot of them have been transplanted in groups of threes into larger hanging baskets where they will continue filling out in preparation for the Summer.

            Our hydrangeas are now at the stage where their flowers are beginning to show colour and it has been an incredible experience to watch this develop, the amount of colour from one day to the next can be quite a drastic difference throughout some of the plants. Interestingly, our pink variety of hydrangeas is developing its colour faster than our blue varieties, we have yet to see any of the blue colouring on our plants at this point in time but it should be popping out soon, we are waiting patiently and full of anticipation. 

            Along with all of the beautiful, ornamental plants mentioned above, we also have a variety of vegetable and bean seedlings being germinated and grown in the greenhouse at the moment. Beans are incredibly quick to sprout and grow, they can make great beginner plant projects for children and adults alike. Over this past weekend we transplanted our cucumber seedlings into larger pots as most have produced their first “true leaf” and will require more space for their root development. Fun fact: The roots of cucumber plants smell like their delicious fruit.
            There is so much greenery and life inside the greenhouse at the moment, the air is beautiful. It is a refreshing break from all of the harsh cold (or extreme rain) we’ve still been experiencing outside. We encourage students, staff and surrounding communities to stop in, stroll through and enjoy all of the exciting colours with us. Though the hydrangeas aren’t at the stage which they’re available for purchase just yet we’re working hard to get them there for you. While you wait, we do still have a variety of interesting succulents available for purchase, or if you’d like more than one we’d be happy to assemble a custom succulent planter for you, stop by we may even have on pre-made that captures your heart. Whether a single succulent or one of our custom multi-succulent planters, both will spruce up your desk or coffee table and add a little spring to your space.

Fanshawe College Greenhouse Weekend Duty

February 7 – 10, 2019

            It was a cold and icy morning on Thursday as I began my drive into London for my final Greenhouse Weekend Duty at Fanshawe. Upon arrival, Jeff and I went over the protocols and procedures to be followed for the weekend as I was to be working alone in the greenhouse. As per usual, we discussed the tasks that Sue had assigned me earlier in the week and went over the schedule for the day as there was going to be a First-Year class and Apprenticeship classes coming in and out of the greenhouse all day.

I prioritized my tasks and figured out the logistics as well, as I did not want to be in the way of lectures going on in the greenhouse. I started with the Opening Checklist and noted that the Hydrangea crop did not need to be watered or fertilized, as they were still moist from their previous watering. I then paid special attention to the recently germinated vegetable seedlings we have in the germination chamber and on the heat mats in the greenhouse. These seedlings will be used at the Canada Blooms show, where children and their parents can transplant the seedlings together. It is hoped that this experience will get more families involved in the growing of their own vegetables. I honestly could not be more thrilled to have been meticulously taking care of these seedlings all weekend. I was checking them every hour on the hour to see if more had germinated or needed water - this is a wonderful initiative that Canada Blooms is taking part in! The rest of my morning consisted of organizing, re-potting, labeling and pricing our extensive succulent collection that we have.

With such a large group of people in the greenhouse in the afternoon, I decided to head into the school to work on my Interiorscape duties. The plants needed very little water but needed to be cleaned up a little bit as some dead foliage was present. When I headed back into the greenhouse I focused again on the seedlings and the succulents. Some of the larger succulents needed to be moved to larger trays and some of our Valentine’s Day planters needed a few more succulents added into them. Heading late into the afternoon, I had the pleasure of being interviewed for our program in the greenhouse. I got to talk about all the things I love about our program and a bit about where I am headed after school here at Fanshawe.

  On Saturday, I knew that I had quite a few little tasks to complete so I quickly got the Opening Checklist completed and jumped right into work. General watering of the stock baskets and 4” pots was completed, followed by taking the pH and EC readings of the Hydrangea crop. My findings were entered into the Culture Chart that we use to keep track of watering and fertilizing. Taking cuttings and updating the stock plant inventory chart kept me busy right up until lunch.

           

After lunch, I performed some general pest management practices and thoroughly walked through the crop. I then focused again on the vegetable seedlings, making sure they were well watered before I left for the evening. I also checked the germination chamber for any trays that had germinated as I did not want them in the chamber over night because they could stretch if left for too long. Any trays that germinated seeds were brought to the heat mats. My night was wrapped up with the Closing Checklist.

Sunday morning came early, but I was eager to get to the greenhouse to finish up my assigned tasks. My morning began with the Opening Checklist and the vegetable seedlings again. It is quite incredible to see the day to day changes in the seedlings! I watered and fertilized the Hydrangea crop, ensuring that the right fertilizer was used for the correct cultivars (something you really do not want to mess up). I decided to do some general cleanup of the potting room and then was fortunate enough (or so I thought), to collect some Ginkgo biloba seeds outside. Well, this was probably one of the grossest tasks I have encountered. If you have never smelled the fruit of a female Ginkgo tree, I would suggest you keep it that way. To take the seed out of its flesh I had to squish the fruit in my hands and extract the seed which was then put into a tray lined with paper towel to dry out. Gross!

fter lunch I thought it would be a good idea to get some cleaning out of the way. I started with the greenhouse floors, carefully sweeping out each aisle between benches. I moved into the potting room where the media bins were pulled out, swept under and wiped down. Switching gears, I headed back into the greenhouse to look at some of the grasses (Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum’) that we are currently growing. I focused on finding smaller grasses that could be potted up together. I was able to make a tray of eight grasses, each pot containing 2-3 smaller grasses. My last task of the day was to water the vegetable seedlings and do my Closing duty checklist.

As my final weekend duty came to a close, I got thinking about all of the things that I love about working in the greenhouse. Seems how we are in the month of February and with Valentine’s Day coming up, I couldn’t help but think of Horticulture being a ‘labour of love.’ More often than not, our profession is not glamorous – its getting dirty but also maintaining a clean environment, its finding pests and realizing they’ve decimated your crop but also finding solutions like using biologicals, its meticulously caring for seedlings and realizing only half of them germinated, its harvesting the tiniest of seeds but also witnessing those seeds grow, it is so many things but so incredibly rewarding and as a student I am truly lucky to get the opportunity to experience it all.

Hydrangea Weekend Duty

Nicole and Adam

Friday February, 1

Alas the final greenhouse weekend duty arrived. I and Nicole enthusiastically arrive to the greenhouse with nothing but hydrangeas on our minds. We greeted a very happy Jeff, who gave us a brief rundown of what we needed to know before sending us off on our way. Since we’ve been in this program for a while we were feeling pretty prepared for the weekend duty this time round. We started off of course with our opening check list, than checked the germination chamber. Watered everything including the hydrangeas for 15 minutes. I then sprang over to scrub down bench one whilst Nicole made and corrected the inventory list. I then whipped up 3 new batches of fertilizer. I Mixed 10 litres of Rosa Vanilla Sky  21-7-7 at 200PPM, then mixed 5 Litres of interior landscape fertilizer at 21-7-7 100PPM and finally mixed 20Liters of Early Blue fertilizer 12-0-44 at 200PPM. Jeff assisted me with my calculations just to be safe. We have to use multiple fertilizers for this crop because some of the hydrangeas need a lower pH while others need a higher pH. I will talk about this in more detail tomorrow. Anyway we than made ample amounts of cuttings from the 4 inch pots, and stock basket plants. This took longer than expected due to so many of the plants in the 4 inch pots such as the Tradescantia fluminensis (Inch Plant), and the Senecio magrogioasus (Flowering Ivy) having to be cut back drastically. We ended off our beautiful work day by making 4 pristine valentine planters which all got sold before we left for the day. We made these valentine planters by using a glass heart shaped container. Filling the bottom with fine gravel, using succulent/cacti media to put our succulents in, and then placing moss around the small succulents which were craftily placed within the heart containers. We ended our work day with the closing check list, and doing a small cleanup of the greenhouse. Today was a lot of fun, it was nice to keep busy in a nice relaxing atmosphere.

Saturday, February, 2

It was another cloudy morning as we arrived to the greenhouse for day two of our endeavour. When we arrived we opened up the green house and checked the germination chamber. To my pleasant surprise many of the seeds that had been put in on Wednesday had germinated. So I set out the trays with the germinated seeds out on bench one, and put clear covers on top in order to keep the trays moist. I than went around the greenhouse and took E.C/pH readings from each cultivar of hydrangea we have in the crop. The current cultivars of hydrangeas at Fanshawe are Vanilla Sky, Rosa, Tivoli, and Early Blue. Early Blue and Tivoli hydrangeas require a pH of 4.5 to 5.5 to reach their desired color while Vanilla sky and Rosa hydrangeas require a pH of 5.5 to 6.5 to reach their desired color. This reality makes pH testing extra critical for this kind of crop. Unfortunately this weekend when the pH was measured it was far too high. Having a pH to high means less nutrients the plant wants will be available, it also means that the desired color we want our hydrangeas to be is less likely to occur. A few things that can be done to decrease pH is add organic materials such as peat moss, or you could add aluminum sulfate or some sulfur supplements to your soil as well. Another unfortunate result out of this testing was that the EC readings were too low. An EC reading shows approximately how many nutrients are available to the plant. The EC levels can be bumped up by fertilizing. While I was pH/EC testing Nicole continued with the begonia cuttings. I than set up the valentine planters, than went out to the school to water the plants in the library, and the 3 large ones just outside of the library. When I got back from the school, I put succulents into the 8 valentine planters set up, and Nicole layered them with moss. When I started printing off tags for my cuttings I noted that many of the labels had a question marks on it instead of the Fanshawe logo. So I very tediously went through and replaced nearly all the labels with ones having the Fanshawe logo on it. After that we packed up and left, feeling very accomplished for having a very successful day 2 on our weekend duty.

Sunday, February, 3

We arrived for our last day determined to finish off this weekend duty going along strong. We designated this day as our main cleanup day. When we arrived we opened up, and checked the germination chamber again. It was low on water so we filled it up, and to my surprise there were many more trays full of seeds which had germinated, so I put those trays out on bench one with the clear covers on those trays as well. Nicole cleaned under the side bench in the greenhouse while I attempted to go on a compost run. Unfortunately when I drove out for the compost run, I got stuck in the snow out in the soccer field. So I had to dig the RTV out, and return back to the greenhouse without dumping any compost. When I did get back to the greenhouse I cleaned the floor in the tractor bay, then the main room, and then cleaned the entire floor in the greenhouse meticulously making sure to get everything. I also went around the greenhouse cleaning things that made the place look more dirty. Things such as the grey heating vents, and the middle section of the main table in the main room. Towards the end of the day we worked on the insect/disease monitoring report, filled in the culture chart, and added the cuttings we made to the inventory list. We than spot watered any hydrangeas that may have been missed, and then closed down the greenhouse. We left feeling confident and proud of ourselves in completing another successful weekend duty.