The Gardens in all their splendor!

Greetings from the A.M. Cuddy Gardens! Hope everyone enjoyed a safe and beautiful Canada day! We are back to work this week with weather I could not dream of. No rain just clear blue sky, warm sunshine with a slight breeze. It has been heaven to be out working at Cuddy Gardens. The lawns have been manicured. We have cleaned up and weeded many of the gardens including the Perennial Border, Dry Garden, Alpine Rock Garden and the prestigious Rose Garden. There was also a very interesting, informative and educational event that occurred two weeks ago that I just must tell you all about!

I'd like to start with all that was accomplished in the gardens this week first.
In the Rose Garden we have dead headed all the roses. The technique is to prune back to an outward facing bud just as you would when pruning in the spring and also not to be afraid of cutting down two or three buds. We are doing all this work not just to get rid of the dead but it also encourages new flower blossoms. Closer to Autumn we will stop dead heading and allow the rose hips to stay as they turn a brilliant orange and add winter interest in the garden.  In the rose garden we are still fighting a battle with Rose Chafer and Japanese beetles. We use no pesticides, just manual control of picking them off the roses and into a bucket of soap and water. There is now evidence that the Chafers have reproduced as we have found some in the larva stage- a small green worm can have yellow or brown spots depending on species and are usually curled up in a ball. Have no fear the Rose Garden is looking magnificent none the less.


Damage caused by the pests

Japanese Beatles

The Alpine Rock Garden which is a very new addition to the A.M Cuddy Gardens is coming along quite nicely. We have been doing garden editing as some plants reproduce and spread to far from where initially wanted. A lot of weeding, cleaning up and raking the gravel. There has also been many cacti and succulents divided out of the garden for the upcoming plant sale.



Front and center is the Prickly Pear Cactus
Native to Canada

Now for that event I was telling you about. Becky Moule the first year Arboriculture teacher in the program organized for Jen Llewellyn from Ministry of Agriculture and Food to come out for an information session of pests and diseases found in the landscape. We summer student gardeners were lucky to join the discussion along with many members of the landscape and arboriculture industry. This was a great opportunity to network in the industry as well as further our education and understanding of pests and diseases we will encounter in our careers. Many pests and diseases were discussed; How to properly identify/ diagnosis problems, and of course the best treatment. I feel I learned a lot from this information session as well as made some good connections with possible future employers. Jen Llewellyn is full of knowledge and ready to share and help any way she can. Following her blog is a joy. www.onnurserycrops.wordpress.com










All in all it has been a great week out at the A.M. Cuddy Gardens, not that you would be surprised. It is paradise out here! be sure not to miss our next open house and plant sale August 16th!

This week at Cuddy Gardens,

This week started off with grass cutting, Eric on the riding mower and me with the push mower.  I learned which lawns needed to be cut and at what specific heights…as a well-manicured and healthy lawn is very important.  The thunder rolled and torrential rain ensued, forcing everyone to find shelter.  Consolidating the hoop house was the name of the game for me!  Tuesday saw increasing humidity and more rain.  All good though because we were beautifying the front of the Hatchery with dusty miller, salvia, and zinnias.  After that it was off to the rose garden to do some planting, battle weeds, and try to stem the tide of the increasing rose chafer population.  Rose chafers are nasty little bugs with an appetite for roses and each other…and the only way we can deal with them is by soaking them with soap and water. 

Wednesday began with a little weeding, but for the most part was spent doing divisions and transplanting to re-stock the Cuddy Garden nursery supply.  Eric and I potted up a bunch of lovely woodland plants:  Canadian and European Ginger, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Lenten Rose, and a bunch of Primrose to name a few.  Thursday and Friday have been much the same…only it’s been a new group of plants to pot.  Everything from Ostrich Ferns and Dianthus to Echinacea and Gentian…the hoop houses are quickly filling up again!

By the way, our next big plant sale is August 16^th, 10am to 4pm

Cheers,

Sharri

This week at the Cuddy gardens was quite eventful with two high school group tours and three truck shipments; we have all been pretty busy. The weather has been beautiful all week; in the low twenties with full sun, sure makes for a hot work day. We did a lot of cleaning up of the beds this week. Throughout the woodland garden we had plants growing into the pathways and margining into other plants. We had to separate the plants into each of their own instead of one big clump of two different plants and to remove the plants growing into the pathways and put them back where they belong, in the garden bed. We weeded and edged the rose garden beds, it was nice because it gives us a lot of practice leaning how to edge properly, and eventually we will all be professionals at it like Lucas. A truck shipment came today, so we had lots to plant into the ground. Everything is coming together very nicely with lots in bloom. Tuesday the first group of students came and Lucas and Mike gave them a tour and a plant to take home and can’t forget about the pizza party after the tour. The second truck came out to Cuddys to drop off a huge load of plants for the plant sale on June 7 and 8, mark your calendars everyone. We have a lot to choose from. Thursday the second group of students came, and once again Lucas and Mike gave the tour and afterwards we got to fill planters with some of the plants that came in the truck the day before. Today is finally Friday, our day consisted of putting a shade cover over the Polly house, weeded, watered, mulched and worked in the dry garden. once again our Cuddy open house is June 7 and 8 from 10 - 4 on sat and 11 - 4 on sun. See everyone there!

 

                                                   

Spring is here!

Friday is here and the weather has been pristine! With a high in the 20's, it definitely felt like perfect gardening conditions. With the much needed moisture throughout the week, plants are finally starting to show off the beauty of their blooms. Some of the magnolias have changed in just a few days from twiggy frames to bold white and pink flowers; accented by splashes of colour from three blooming primroses in the woodland garden. Sky blue anemones sporadically line the border in the dry garden accenting the various bulbs which are spread throughout the gardens. The season is just beginning and it is looking quite promising.




As the spring and summer seasons take shape, the gardens are improving each day with new additions and improved facilities. Specialty fence panels, built by the second year horticulture students, have been erected to create permanent stations for CLT(Certified Landscape Technician) testing which will take place here at Cuddy's as part of this great program. A fresh coat of paint has gotten the mediocre compost bin looking quite professional and a topping of pea gravel has subdued the soggy ground out beside the hoop house. As the plants grow, the weeds compete, so we took a day to tackle the perennial bed; cutting back ugly and weeding; finishing off by coating the beds with fresh mulch.



Exciting news for the week ahead! A new hoop house will be arriving which will mean more plants and better production! The base is already layed out as ambition is building for the open house in June. It's great to see these grounds grow and develop to be better then ever!  Through all this excitement, I forgot to mention what a special weekend it is! It's Mothers day on Sunday, so be sure to show her how special she is and how appreciative you are for all the hard work of being a mother.


To all the Mom's out there: Have a wonderful and blessed weekend from us here at A.M Cuddy Gardens!

Adam K, Katlyn V

Friday April 18^th 2014

It was a lovely morning, Adam and I started off with filling in the ruts around the property. This required us to kick back the turf and soil to where it originally was. We also had to add some more soil to some spots where they were really low. After adding the soil we raked it out all nice and smooth. I was shocked as to how many people and plows actually drive on the grass and just don’t care. Our second job of the day was to make a more defined edge to the already existing tree wells. We did one maple, three pines and three crab-apples. After they were all complete it was time to add the mulch. Adam was a pro so he went to get that for us using the tractor. Once our tree wells were finished our first day was almost done, we had one last thing to do, pull out the Serbian spruce up in the front bed. That was a lot easier than I thought we could pull them right out just using our hands. I filled out the form saying that we took them out and put it back with the other ones. That was the end of our first day.

 

Saturday

Saturday was a little slow with us. All Adam did until last break was edge the front bed. And all I did until last break was prune the burning bush (until Pascoe told me not to worry about it because they were coming out anyways… couldn’t have told me that before I started) and pruned the Nine bark. After lunch we decided to get a head start on the cedar hedge because we knew we still had a lot to do. We knocked off all the soil from the root balls and left them to bake in the sun. We also had to do some of those buggers up that people had forgotten to do. Other than having to remove the debris from the garden bed that about all we did Saturday. I wasn’t too impressed with our work ethic and the amount of work completed for Saturday.

Sunday  (Easter, and also the VERY last day of practical!!!!!)

Since we really didn’t get much done on Saturday we both knew that this is crunch time! Adam went back up to the front of the garden to finish is edge I’m guessing, he also had to mulch it so I’m hoping he did that too. While he was doing that, my best friend Courtney and I started on the cedar hedge. She was in a group of three and they powered through almost all their stuff so she offered to help me out. What a nice friend. First job we had to do was remove the root balls. As I drove along with the RTV she would just pick them up and chuck them into the trailer. We had a pretty good system going once we got into it. Once they were all cleaned up, she was on one side and I was on the other she would rake her side of the soil back into the hole then I would rake mine, once again we had an amazing system going. Now it was time to mulch. I drove the RTV over and watch Courtney somehow perfectly operate the tractor and dumped a big load of mulch in. Sticking to our system, id pull up, park, get out, and help her unload the mulch around the cedars, back in drive a little more. We dropped all the mulch that we needed for our section by lunch time. After lunch I was flying solo again, at this point Adam was down at the other end removing his root balls. I started to spread the mulch along the hedge. Adam came up to help me once he removed his root balls. This is where crunch time began. Not only did we still have to much the whole other side of the hedge but we still had to fill the holes in with the soil. And I still had to prune those dang dogwoods. I left Kattis to trust him to finish the part where I started. I brought the RTV down with me to the other side and started dumping mulch. Filling in the holes and dumping mulch.

Courtney, Evan, and Ajay

Day 1

The first day of our last practical (we actually made it!) started a bit chilly for being the middle of April but still it was better than the snow that had graced us the week before. After Courtney opened the house up we sat down and took a moment to wake ourselves up, as we waited for the dreaded eight am to come. After the 8 am rolled around we set off to the tool shed to pick out our weapons of choice:  the mighty loppers, the faithful shears and the fearsome (and singular) hand saw. Upon reaching our work site we divided ourselves up and set to the mission at hand which was spring cleanup of the front Iris garden.  One of the main tasks the removal of DDDI’s (dead, dying, diseased and interfering) branches, suckers and water sprouts. The other task was the cutting hydrangeas down to 6-8 inches with the nearest bud. Everything was going smoothly until we came across a Weigela that looked like it was dead. We started with removing the obvious DDDI’s. Then we carefully removed smaller select stems with our Felco secateurs, checking each stem as we pruned (looking for signs of life but there was none!). Next we moved up to loppers, again selecting certain stems then checking for signs of life alas they were lacking that necessary xylem and phloem flow.  We discussed cutting the whole plant down but before we came to a conclusion we broke for lunch. During our lunch Pascoe showed up and we decided to show him the plant to get his opinion. After giving the Weigela a once over, Pascoe informed us that the plant was in fact still alive, so we cleaned it up a bit more and moved on.

 

 

Day 2

Saturday morning started even colder than yesterday bringing with it frost. Thankfully no more snow but the frost was unfortunate for anyone who planted any tender plants thinking the cold was gone. After removing frost from the windshields of our vehicles we set off for Strathroy.  Upon arriving we decided what tasks were our main priorities for the morning. Courtney started with edging on the Iris garden while Ajay and Evan went to the front of Cuddys to remove stones that were thrown from the highway into the turf, using an Echo paddle sweeper. After Ajay and Evan finished their tasks they set off to do edging, with Ajay going to help Courtney on the Iris bed and Evan attacking the very front garden. This continued on for the rest of the day only taking a break from it to do a few tasks that Pascoe had assigned when stopping by. Such as giving two Spruce new leaders to replace their original ones which had died.

 

Day 3

Today started the warmest of them all, not a bad way to start the final day of the final practical. After arriving at the house we sat down to discuss what tasks were left for us to do and realized that we were pretty much done so instead of checking off the few last tasks on our list first we decided help out the other groups with their tasks first. Courtney decided to go help Katlyn and Adam with their tasks. First Katlyn and Courtney started by rounding up the equipment needed for the day. They started by removing all of the dead Cedar root balls from the Cedar Border by the Polyhouses. They then filled the leftover holes from the root balls and started to mulch. Thinking it would be a good idea to let the mulch dry out so it wasn’t as heavy, Courtney and Katlyn moved up to the front of the property to finish the pruning of the Dogwoods and Ninebarks. Evan went to help Brandy and Dave with their tasks at the greenhouse which included: repotting Pines into larger pots and then takings some annual bulbs and repacking them into bulb trays (making sure to water them in as we went along). After we finished assisting the other groups we regrouped to finish our last task, blowing all the hardscapes to remove any debris on them. This task was short and sweet just the way we like it, after that we did one final check of the gardens up front and then cleaned up. Although the last day was hectic, stepping back and taking a second you can’t help but admire all the beauty that the Cuddy Gardens has to offer. It will certainly be missed by all of us! You can guarantee to see a lot of our faces at the Cuddy Garden Open House the first weekend in June! Hope to see you all there as well!   

 

Dave and Brandy April 18-20

April 18, 19, & 20^th. Dave and Brandy

                Spring has sprung and it is time to open up the greenhouses for the year! It has been a long cold winter and our plants have been very patient. When we arrived at Cuddy’s for 8am out first order of business was to be sure all of the plants in both hoop houses and the nursery were watered. During watering we noticed some of the trees and shrubs in the nursery were in consistent with their pot sizing, and the nursery floor needed more gravel. The only problem with that was the rain setting in, so we moved our work inside transplanting some metasequoia, and staking them and also staking some birch tree saplings.  In the poly house, some flats on the floor were not laid out properly (3 rows of 4 flats with one in between each set of rows.)

 

                Saturday was a bright and sunny day, although the morning was cold it warmed up immensely for the afternoon. We started out day by collecting the pots that the selected plants were to be transplanted into. Once we had all of our pots we moved the selected plants out of the nursery area to complete putting the gravel down and levelling it out.  Once all of our gravel was levelled out, I (Brandy) started transplanting, while Dave cleaned up the area where we built the stone wall. After the area was all cleaned up we had some grass brought to us that we were instructed to pot up, bringing us to the end of the day.

                Sunday morning started out beautifully. As everyone arrived we planned out our tasks for the day. Dave and I finished the transplanting and moving the trees in the nursery, which put us onto our next task of pruning the weeping mulberry trees. After that I moved all of the steel from behind the compost and cleaned up that whole area straightening out the tarp and cleaning up the stones. The end of our day was simply cleaning up the greenhouses, weeding the plant pots and osmacoteing everything. At the end of the day we washed all the tools we used and helped the maintenance crew also clean their tools and washed the tractors.