Tami Gillespie & Brandon Robidoux
Friday, March 29, 2013
Our Easter morning practical began with the opening and cleaning out of the poly houses. Filled to almost full capacity were potted Thuja occidentals (White Cedar). Clearing out these cedars was the first step to preparing the poly house for spring and the growing season. Throughout the cold winter months the cedars had become very dried out and required water ASAP. We spent majority of the morning taking the cedars out of the poly house, lining them up in rows between the two poly houses and irrigating them. Right before noon the famous Mr. Mike Pascoe and his dog BD stopped by to visit us. By then the cloudy morning had turned into a bright sunny day perfect for working in. After discussing with Mike the progress of the poly-house clean up, we went for a walk to determine the rest of the task assigned to us for the weekend. The main priority for our weekend practical is the continuation of the spring clean-up of the Cuddy A.M Gardens, specifically the grasses and flower beds in front of the Cuddy hatchery. Tall perennial grasses had been left standing for winter interest. But with spring well upon us it was time to cut them back. The flower beds were in need of some detail clean-up as they were littered with leaves, dead foliage and the occasional weeds. Due to the frontal location of the hatchery located along the Cuddy Gardens entrance driveway it was imperative that the gardens beds are kept to a pristine level of excellence. We continued to relocate Cedars and irrigate them for the remainder of the day. Thoroughly sweeping out and tidying up was the last task completed.
Empty Poly-houses
Relocated Thuja occidentalis
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Arriving at the Cuddy Gardens Saturday morning, we were fully prepared to load up the RTV with every kind of maintenance tools available to us and head out to work on the spring clean-up of the front garden beds. After circle checking all the equipment to ensure they were operating properly and double checking we had all the tools needed for the day. We set out to hook up the trailer to the tractor. That’s when a positive morning turned sour. Despite perfectly lining up the tractor ball to the hitch on the trailer, we discovered that we could not securely latch the hitch together. 30 minutes, a phone call to Lucas, and some creative hammering we finally managed to completely secure the trailer. Hoping not to lose any more time, we parked the tractor and trailer close enough to garden beds for ease of debris removal. We thought it would be as a simple task to tie up the grasses and shear them down with hedge trimmers. However our bad luck continued; discovering that the gas cap on the hedge trimmer was broke. We feared that the task of cutting down the grass in a few hours by gas powered hedge shears would turn into a whole day of hand cutting them. Thankfully, Lucas was a simple phone call away he suggested a creative solution. Borrowing a gas cap from another machine made by the same company allowed us to use the gas powered hedge shears safely with no more fuel leaking. Despite the setbacks, only an hour of work was lost and a cold morning turned into another beautiful spring day perfect working weather. The rest of our morning passed by quickly, with no more sign of bad luck. Working together we planned a systematic pace of tying the grasses, cutting them, raking up the dead foliage, weeding and sweeping the pavements. Mounding each grass is important for structural growth. Before noon hit we had half the grasses cut back. Early afternoon Mr. Mike Pascoe popped up again asking “What up?”, and how we were doing. He check our work was completed to “Horticulture Standards” and left us to continue working. We then continued to cutting back more grasses, dump the spent grass foliage in the burn pile and raking out the grass beds. Planted along with the grasses were some Cotinus (Smoke Bush) we pruned them down to 4-5 buds using the coppicing technique to encourage “suckering” and lateral growth. As the day continued the wind became an issue. It would die down while we were raking the grass foliage and picked up again blowing our neat piles of collected grasses everywhere. The last task tackled before leaving was the removal of the snow fencing. Even with wire cutters, it was troublesome to remove the fence from the t-bars but the task was accomplished.
Uncut grasses, cut back grasses
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Our last day of weekend practical continued with cutting back the last section of perennial grasses remaining. Unfortunately April was right around the corner and with that comes spring rain. Not enough rain to make garden maintenance miserable, but steady drizzling turned the dry garden beds into a muddy mess. Due to the weather cleaning up the beds was slow progress. The wet grass just seemed determined to remain in the garden beds, our work boots became caked with mud, and the RTV and Kubota began leaving muddy tracks. Despite the weather Mr. Pascoe and his dog BD dropped by again to review our progress. He suggested using a snow shovel to remove the tracked mud. The rain persisted until just after lunch, perfect timing for us to finish cleaning up the driveway unfortunately due to the wet weather we weren’t able to back-pack blow the driveway clean. Next on our to-do-list, a task we were both dreading was the clean-up of the Berberis (Barberry) hedge located along the Cuddy Hatchery. Over the fall and winter months the dormant Berberis has become littered with leaves. Berberis is a thorny deciduous shrub that grows on dead wood. Wearing thick gloves, with weeding buckets in hand we set out to clean up the hedge to a zero leaf left. The task took less time than expected and our cloudy day surprisingly turned to sunny. The corners of the gardens proved most difficult due to the planted Cotoneaster its trailing form was perfect for leaves to become entangled and caught within. We finished up the day with tying up any leave left on the driveway. We made one last trip to both the compost area and the burn pile. We then power washed all tools and equipment.
Our plant profile was on Galanthus nivalis (Common Snowdrop)
Plant Profile for Galanthus nivalis
Family: AMARYLLIDACEAE
Genus: Galanthus
Species: nivalis
Common Name: Common Snowdrop
Category: Bulb, Perennial
Type: Spring Flowering Bulb
Canadian Hardiness Zone: 3 to 7
Landscape: Mass plantings, woodland gardens, under large deciduous trees. Also effective in groupings in rock gardens, border fronts, in front of flowering shrubs or along walks or paths. Mix with other early flowering bulbs such as Eranthis (Winter Aconite)
Native Range: Europe
Habitat: Woodlands
Growth: Fast
Flowering Period: March and April
Propagation: Division can be made when bulbs are in full foliage or when they are dormant in late summer. Allow foliage to die back naturally.
Light Requirements: Full sun to part shade.
Water Requirements: Medium.
Flower Description: 3 large white petals, 3 similar sepals on inside of flower. Flower bearing stock is 7-15 cm in length with a single erect bud. Flowers will eventually die down to soil level.
Leaf Description: Smooth and semi-glucose, dull grayish-green in colour. 5-15 cm in length when in flower. 0.4-0.8 cm in width. Each bulb produces 2-3 narrow, linear, basal leaves.
Colour Description: White pendulous flowers with light green leaves
Cultivation: Easily cultivated in most free draining soils. Low maintenance bulb
Pests: No serious insect or disease problems
http://www.canadaplants.ca/display.php?id=1209
http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/gardens-gardening/your-garden/plant-finder/plant-details/kc/k300/galanthus-nivalis.aspx
No comments:
Post a Comment