Daylily border along Hatchery

The Daylilies (Hemerocallis) are in bloom and add a spectacular array of colour to the gardens. This week has been a week of detailed maintenance. On Monday Yujing and I set out to the road borders both on our property and the hatchery's property. Our task was to remove the thistles that always appear in those beds. This took up the extent of Monday, even with the help we received from the dual credit students that had been taking a horticulture course for the past week. Yujing taught them the proper way to weed out the thistles and get all the roots.
On Tuesday, with a heat warning in effect, James and I tackled the Daylily border along the hatchery (pictured above). We had more help from dual credit students and finished before lunch. After lunch I had the job of spreading the mulch piles that had been made by a cut down tree and some branches that fell as a result of a strong storm that blew through the gardens on Saturday. There were three piles, by the parking lot, and in the Hosta garden.

Mulch pile in the lower Hosta garden.

Wednesday began with yet another heat warning. But we started the day off with a field trip to Hillens Nursery with the dual credit students so they could see how a large scale operation like Hillens is run. Once we returned to the gardens, Yujing and I got to weeding the sand pits where the CLT testing takes place in the fall for the 2nd year students. After lunch we still had a bit to do with the sand pits, but once that was finished, we were forced to move into shady areas by the sun since it was just too hot to be anywhere else. So we just simply weeded until the day was done.
Thursday was another hot day with a heat warning. The day began with myself and Yujing weeding the borders that run along the main driveway into the property. Once finished we made our way over to the area were the Cacti and Succulent collection is kept and weeded all the tall weeds from between the stones, but made sure to keep the moss.

Around 10:30, Jeff Hicks from Landscape Ontario came by to talk with the dual credit students about his career and their aspirations going forward since the course was ending that day.


 

After lunch, Yujing and I returned to weeding between the stones and then focused on removing the various dandelions from the lawns.
On Friday we finally had some relief from the extreme heat of the last three days. The morning task was to weeds and organize the courtyard between the hoop houses.

Once that task was completed, I went on to deal with some particularly persistent bindweed in the beds across from the CLT sand pits while James and Yujing did the weekly mowing on the property.

Another great week has passed at the Cuddy Gardens with many exciting things happening. I look forward to the next time I come back to these gardens.



Blooming Daylily

Blooming Daylily