Emily and Nick's Weekend Duty

A.M Cuddy Gardens Blog

Emily and Nick

Friday

Friday April 15th; what started out as a brisk morning turned out to be a beautiful day!

Nick, Buckley(my dog) and I began the day touring the property with Lucas and Nate to find out

what we would be doing for the weekend. Our tasks were to mulch the path through the hosta

garden, weed the roadside bed, unhill and prune a few roses, and soil and over seed a few bare or

damaged spots in the turf

First was to mulch the hosta garden path. Our hosta garden will be looking full and

spectacular in a few weeks when all the hostas are up. Right now the daffodils are beginning to

bloom, they are enjoying the wonderfully warm weather as much as we are. Lucas was telling us

about years ago when he first came to the A.M Cuddy Gardens, this hosta garden did not yet

exist. The area in which we were standing in was all turf. It was interesting to try and envision

what it was then compared to how it is now. Every year these gardens become even more

beautiful. Michael Pascoe came to visit us with B.D his dog. B.D and Buckley enjoyed running

around while we worked. After they left we went in the house for lunch, Buckley was

disappointed to find that B.D had thieved his bone.

After lunch Nate and I took the garden tractor and the loader tractor to the mulch pile across the

road. We had run out, so we got another trailer load which would hopefully be enough for what

we needed. We then put our mulching task on stand by, as Lucas needed our help to assemble the

panels for the cash tent. He and Nick had already started, by the time we had returned from

loading the trailer with mulch they had the roof of the cash tent almost on. We then started to tie

in the side panels. One by one, we zip tied each panel to the frame until it was complete. This

had brought us close to the end of our day. We loaded up the RTV, and returned the tractors to the

tool shed.

The last few minutes of our day, Nick and I explored the gardens to take photos of what

was in bloom. Many of the Scilla sibirica are popping up, some in the garden and some

throughout the turf near the dry garden. The bees are quite happy as this is one of their first

major food sources. While we walked through the dry garden you could hear them pleasantly

humming as they pollinated the flowers.

 

We then said our final farewells to Lucas and Nate; we would not see them again as our

last class was on Thursday April 14th. It was bitter sweet moment, but we knew we would see

them again in the future.

Saturday

Saturday April 16th another cool start to the day, but again temperatures reached above 20

degrees by the afternoon. We began the morning circle checking the equipment we would be

using and got our tools ready to finish mulching the path way. Unfortunately as we made our

way through the mulch pile, we discovered that we would not have enough to finish the path. So

we used all we had and moved on to our next task which was turf repair. During the winter the

plows will sometimes come too close to the edge of the turf and strip off pieces, leaving them

turned over. In the spring it is our task to turn the pieces back over and top dress the area with

soil and seed. There were a few places that required this, especially near the road. We had to be

extra careful when working near the road as it is very busy, even Buckley wore a vest to stay

safe!

This task took up much of the rest of our day. Michael and B.D visited us again while we were

working. He said he would return in the morning so that we could get the key for the gate to get

more mulch. Michael also made B.D return Buckley's bone she had taken on Friday. She was

reluctant to do so, but when Michael insisted she let her friend Buckley have it back.

There were also 3 Serbian Spruce trees that had died that needed to be dug out as they

had not survived the winter, the likely cause was root rot judging by the shallow weak roots.

As Nick finished some of the road side turf repair, I pruned and unhilled a few roses that had

been missed. In the late fall manure is used to hill up around the base of the rose to help keep it

warm in the winter. In the spring we unhill them, and prune the roses back so that there are only

5 to 7 canes with 5 to 7 buds on them (that is specific to this type of rose). As the end of the day

drew near, we spent the last few minutes cleaning up the shop and putting away the equipment.

Sunday

Sunday April 17th, weather wise this weekend couldn't get any better. Smells of flowers, grass

and mulch filled the Cuddy gardens, Spring really has arrived! As Nick loaded up the RTV with

more soil to use for top dressing the turned up turf spots. I watered the greenhouse and the trees

and shrubs outside. This took us to the time where Michael paid us another visit. Once we had

the keys to open the gate, we took the RTV to get more mulch so we could finally finish the

hosta garden path. Once we finished up mulching the path we moved onto the last bit of turf

repair, there was a lot more than we thought!

 

After lunch we cleaned up our left over soil, and got the tools we would need for

weeding. Luckily the soil we were pulling them from was deep and rich so many of them popped

up easy enough with a good garden fork. After a couple hours of weeding, it was time to call it a

day. We had the tool shed to clean, as well the RTV and all of our tools. As Nick washed the

RTV Buckley enjoyed getting sprayed with the water too! We then locked everything up, and did

a final walk around to ensure no tools were left behind. I double checked the water, as we had a

beautiful warm sunny day and some of the big trees needed an extra boost.

As we gathered our things and locked up the classroom, we said our final farewells to the

beautiful Cuddy house. We have enjoyed having a place such as the Cuddy gardens to call our

own for the last two years. Not every college can say that they have their own private botanical

garden. It has provided an enriching and educational environment for us and we are very

privileged to have it.