Greenhouse Weekend Blog

Ellyn and Harrison

Our weekend duty began on a windy Friday morning. We then began our opening checklist. When we looked into the germination chamber many of the seeds had become seedlings. We then covered them with cheese cloth to help them adapt to their new environment.

As well we have begun planting a variety of perennials and geraniums in preparation for warmer weather, but because of these extra additions to the greenhouse we struggled to find an area to put these plants. Luckily we made a large amount of sales on Friday which opened up bench 7 to house our almost 500 geraniums. Let’s just say moving the geraniums took a while. We also were tasked with watering and fertilizing almost all the plants in the greenhouse. We split up the watering to make it more efficient one person watered the cannas, perennials and seedlings while the other focused on watering the hydrangeas, geraniums and seeds in the germination chamber. As the day began to come to an end, we finished planting some of our perennials, while also dealing with the many customers coming in to look at our beautiful hydrangeas. We then had to change our focus to cleaning up, it was very important for the greenhouse to be spic and span for the Fanshawe Open House the following day.  We then made our way home awaiting our next day in the greenhouse.

We came in the following day to a beautifully bright and warm sun that brought a smile to my face. We then started our opening checklist, after that was complete we began tasks to organize the greenhouse for the Open House. This including adding tags to any unlabelled perennials and flipping the tags so they were more uniform and matched one another. We had four 1^st year students join us in the greenhouse to help talk to anyone curious about the horticulture technician program, as well as Michael Pascoe, Sue Millar and Jeff Hicks. Saturday was definitely a very busy day there always seemed to be at least one person in the greenhouse needing information on the program or looking to buy hydrangeas. This made it hard to get many of the tasks that we were assigned done but thanks to the first years’ help we managed to finish planting all the rest of the 60+ perennials and over 100 geraniums. We were selling so many hydrangeas that we had to move almost half a bench of hydrangeas to the front of the benches.

Of the varieties of hydrangeas grown this year, the ‘Tivoli’ was by far the most popular! This style is variegated blue or pink with white edges. People were dazzled by the unusual coloration all weekend and it became the first of our cultivars to sell out! Our blue, pink, and white varieties (called ‘Early Blue’, ‘Rosa’, and ‘Vanilla Sky’) were also very popular, and after talking to many of the customers, it’s apparent just how well loved this plant is! While people bought them for a variety of reasons, including for cut flowers, as a desk plant, and for the garden, I’m sure everyone could agree that the explosion of colour and large flower clusters are perfect for welcoming the official start of spring!

Selling hydrangeas supports the Horticulture program and was a great way of connecting with future students and sharing some of our horticultural knowledge. Having student volunteers in the greenhouse allowed them to get some extra experience, and helped accomplish important tasks. Therefore, the Open House on Saturday was a booming success, and we were proud to help represent the greenhouse and the program.

  

On Sunday, after the commotion of Open House was over, we had a few large tasks ahead to accomplish. First, we prepared trays of media and watered them to prepare for the planting of lots of different vegetables and flowers. These included African Yellow Marigolds (which we planted hundreds of), tricolour cherry tomatoes, black cherry tomatoes, Bells of Ireland, and more. When planted, the trays were put in the germination chamber, where they will receive regular mistings with warm water. The humidity and warmth will help them germinate and protect the emerging seedlings from the hot, direct sun of the greenhouse. After seeding, the succulents needed to be repotted and organized in preparation for their eventual sale to Landscape Ontario. The soil used for potting the succulents allows for more drainage than regular potting mix because succulents store lots of water and therefore don’t need a lot. Because of this, their roots can’t tolerate constant or even consistent moisture, and drainage is desirable. We found a large bloom on one of the more mature succulents, adding another pink pop of colour to the greenhouse to match the hydrangeas!

Finally, the current propagation chamber was disassembled and hauled away for the incoming installation of a brand new propagation station. After cleaning up the debris from the massive haul, the desks, rolling storage bins, and chairs were moved from the general vicinity to allow easy access to the propagation location in anticipation for the propagation station installation. After completing the final closing checklist, we were at the end of greenhouse weekend duty. Overall, it was a busy weekend with a very successful Open house event, dominated by the graceful beauty of the hydrangeas!