Thomas and Blayne

Weekend Duty Blog – Cuddy Gardens

Thomas Lauzon; Blayne Dunham

 

Weekend duty at cuddy gardens was 3 days full of showers and succulents.  After the extremely long drive from London we arrived in Strathroy to a gloomy sky and wet grass. As we waited for Lucas we watched as the fog dissipated enough for us to see the beautiful gardens. After we got our assignments for the weekend we went off to work.

Friday morning turned out to be sunny and warm with a few unexpected guests. After we had finished moving a few giant potted trees into the house we were just starting on composting/repotting planters when both Mr. Pascoe and Mr. D visited the gardens.  The afternoon and evening was spent mainly in the dry gardens taking the many, many cacti and other potted succulents and hauling them to a safe sunny location inside the house.  This was easier said than done however; if you don’t know most cacti have spines that happen to stick into your skin when you touch them. After putting half of the succulents either inside the house, into the pool room or beside the car port ready to take to the school it was time to take lunch.

 Afterwards we finished up moving everything inside that was in pots inside and gave all the transplants a drink. We then took the RTV to the hoop houses to water and check for anything peculiar. After tidying the house we turned off the water locked up the house and drove home.

 

Saturdays work day was only 4 hours long, we checked to make sure nothing needed water when we arrived then continued finishing up jobs from the day before. Many succulent planters had to be dismantled and put in trays before being put into the house. When this was done it had started raining so we decided to start tearing apart the hanging baskets underneath the pergola.

 

Sunday was a drizzly affair. The sun was determined to hide from us all day but we worked nonetheless. When we arrived we decided to trim and mow before the weather got too bad. We were able to run the mower and finish the work however the trimmer was almost empty and the shop happened to be out of mixed fuel. While Blayne was mowing the lawn I started on weeding the two front beds of the Cuddy hatchery. Which were mostly weeds with a few grasses thrown in here and there. After Blayne was done with the push mower she joined me and we spent the rest of the day weeding, hoeing, raking and making the garden look much better than before.