Fanshawe Main Campus Blog

By: Meghan, Colby, and Brooke

Submitted: Sunday October 6th 2019

            As Autumn kicks off, maintenance duty is in its prime. Fall cleanup is a peak time for those who pursue landscape maintenance as a way to earn cash because of all the dropped leaves, pruning, planting, and harvesting that needs done before the frost does its damage. This weekend (October 4th, 5th, and 6th) our little ad hog group was assigned to perform various fall cleanup tasks on campus.

            Our adventure starts bright and early Friday morning at the greenhouse where we met with the all knowing overseer, Jeff Rowley, to discuss what our weekend will consist of. He gave us a list to complete in no particular order and also accompanied us around campus to explain his list in further detail. We finished our walk at Louise Weekes garden where Jeff asked us what we would suggest to a paying customer if she wanted to clean the garden up’ and how much we would quote labour at. He told us to think about it and start our work day, so that we did.

            We began working on the north east corner of R1 where there was a damaged bed due to a solar panel installation. The group was asked to plant 3 different species of plant in the bed with intention and finish the job off with mulch. We were not given an exact map of the layout that much was up to us. We weeded, edged, and cultivated the bed in preparation for new plantings. We decided on using the Hydrangea as the centerpiece as it has the most pop versus the The following pictures are the before and after of the bed we worked on.

             The self proclaimed beautiful bed took a good chunk of our day, so we filled the rest of the day with smaller tasks that we knew we would be able to finish. The first was to plant a Prunus laurocerasus TIITAN@ ‘Rentan’ that happened to be missed by other students when they were redoing a bed by H1033. This was immediately followed by us explaining the plan we had created for the Louise Weekes garden to Jeff Rowley. As a group we discussed the following points need to be addressed:

-edging

-weeding

-deadheading daylilies

-removing dead branches and foliage

-cutting back Wisteria and Sneezeweed

-filling in groundhog holes

-removing thistles

-replanting daylilies

-pruning branches obstructing bench

-removing old wooden stake

-removing leaf debris 

-gathering ginger for Cuddy’s

We decided that all these items would take about 7.5 hours each to complete which came out to about $450 for labour. Jeff Rowley was fairly pleased with our list and asked us to then complete all those items on the list we created by the end of the weekend.

We then finished the day off by planting an Acer palmatum 'Twombly's Red Sentinel’ beside the entrance of R2. We made sure to always stake our trees with the stakes perpendicular to the prevailing winds to allow for reactionary growth on the tree. Once both these specimens were in the ground, it was time to clean up and head home for the day.

Meghan digging for the Prunus laurocerasus TIITAN@ ‘Rentan’ R: The Acer palmatum 'Twombly's Red Sentinel’

            Saturday began just as early as Friday, except this time Rowley wasn’t there to greet us. The team got right to work in the Louise Weekes Garden and spent from 8 AM until 4 PM completing everything on our list above. The garden ended up looking much cleaner after our elbow grease and love went into the cleanup. There were a few challenges along the way such as a need to share the RTV with those who work on campus, but it all worked out in the end. Here are some before and afters of the most hectic spots:

After this we cleaned up and put all the tools away. Then we returned to the greenhouse to do a bit of paperwork before hometime.

            Finally the Sabbath arrived. Sunday was filled with similar tasks to Friday. We began at the entrance of R3 where a few Hypericum frondosum ‘Sunburst’ and a couple other yet to be identified, used to be shrubs needed to be removed so we could make room for some Thuja occindentalis ‘Fire Chief’ ‘Congabe’  and Miscanthus sinensis. We prepped the bed in the same way as we did on Friday and mulched afterwards also. Again, design was left up to the crew, so we went with a staggered look. We made sure to always research the plants we were putting in the ground to ensure that the distance between them was appropriate for how large each species would become. The final look was a nice pop of green against a brown mulch and a huge improvement from what was there before. 

This took just over half the day, so the rest we filled with jobs we could confidently finish before the end of the last day. We may collectively refer to this as the final countdown. The team started after break with planting a couple Cornus alternafolia in the Woodland garden near the outdoor storage area. Followed by ripping out two dead Cornus chinensis ‘kousa’ directly across from them. Then immediately after we headed just a few meters East where we planted 3 Spiraea japonica 'NCSX1’. We then moved just a few yards north to K building where a couple plants in a bed needed rearranged to complete that small task. By the time those tasks were completed, it was time to clean up, put everything away and return to the greenhouse to finish off paperwork and head home. 

This weekend was packed full of learning opportunities and hard work. Our group found it very rewarding to be able to put all of the knowledge we have gained over the last year and a bit to the test and see where we stand in terms of being able to lead a crew in landscape maintenance.