Friday, August 9th, 2013

After the long weekend I was back for my second week at the A.M. (Mac) Cuddy Gardens, and we spent our time performing the essential maintenance critical to ensure preparations for the second open garden event of the summer go smoothly. As we share parking lots with Cuddy Farms, this means we also help them out when they have an issue that needs attention. This Tuesday, that issue was the rear garden bed. Planted decades before any of our student gardeners were born, it is home to several black pines in sad decline thanks to diplodia tip blight, as well as a large number of junipers starting to suffer from lack of sun. The junipers themselves were thick enough to act as a net, catching the needles and smothering themselves under a thick layer of pine litter. After weeding and hedge trimming in front of the hatchery, we began to tackle this bed, limbing up trees and cleaning up the junipers as well as performing some needed pruning.

This job continued onto Wednesday morning before we were forced indoors by an intense (but brief) thunderstorm, giving us time to sweep and organize the tractor bay.

Next, we turned our attention to the iris border, where a number of Gymnocladus dioicus suckers had reached a height of six feet or more. Lucas removed them with an eye towards growing them in pots for eventual sale before moving on to pruning a number of other shrubs backing on to the irises as Dave and I painstakingly weeded and hoed the unmulched bed.

Thursday saw Lucas on campus, leaving us by ourselves at the gardens. We tackled the jobs he had set out for us methodically and efficiently, weeding the upper lawn, vertical edging and weeding the rose garden, and cultivating the dry garden.

 Once the soil was dry enough after lunch, Dave was able to mow the upper lawn while I took the line trimmer out to the obstacles by the road and the lower lawn.



Various annuals such as Cannas and Colocasia edging the upper lawn

We were just able to start vertical edging the perennial border, noting it required attention, before the day was done.

On my final day here, we picked up right where we had left off, with the vertical edging, weeding, and cultivation of the perennial border. In the middle I made a sweep of the Louise Weekes garden as well, making sure it was nice and clean for the open garden next weekend.

 One of the great things about this property is the great variety of plants mean no matter what time of the year, there is always something of interest. Late summer is a great time for blooms in the perennial border, which I found eye-popping.

That finishes my week here, but I'll be back in just a few days for the big push ahead of the Open Garden, August 17th from 10am-4pm. Hope to see you all there so you can enjoy the gardens as much as we have!

-Eric Abram

Chastetree, Vitus agnus-castus, on the edge of the Rose Garden

Arizona Sun Blanket Flower,
Gaillardia x grandiflora, playing host to a fully-loaded bee