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.