Making Baskets and Grafting

Weather: Sunny

Today I worked with the John, a part timer who has been working with Longwood for 26 years. He used to be work in production and was in charge of the standards, baskets and topiaries.
First off we made some jasmine (Jasminum polyanthum) baskets. I had never made baskets before, and these were different from baskets I had seen before. Rather than simply planting in the top and allowing plants to cascade, they were built up in a spherical form with plants emerging underneath as well as on top. They are built from the base up in layers, with five plants (from 4 inch square pots) in a layer and five layers, making for a total of 25 plants per basket. The top two are placed around a plastic pot. We used 16 inch diameter baskets but there are also 12, 14 and 18 inch. The plants and the potting mix are held in the basket by a layer of sphagnum moss and a number of small u shaped pins. Bigger pins are also placed in the rootballs the top layer of plants.

Finished.

We made four baskets in total and it took until after lunch. Though we did have a small break in the middle when John showed me a book in the Library of some of the projects he has worked on, including ivy topiary elephants and dinosaurs. Ace.

After lunch John taught me how to do t-bud grafts. We were grafting Ivy (Hedera helix) onto xFatshedera lizei, a inter-generic hybrid between Ivy and Fatsia japonica, in order to create ivy standards. The grafts had already been taken, but as some failed we needed to go back through and make sure there were at least three successful grafts for each intended ball on a standard (there are meant to be two balls per standard). John taught me first on on spare stems, and then I went and did the actual grafting once I was confident.

T bud grafting involves first making a T shaped cut in the epicormic or bark layer of tissue on plant you intend to graft onto. The bark is then peeled back slightly from the wood to make a V. A section from a stem of Ivy is then cut. It should have a healthy node and leaf. This is then halved lengthwise using a Sharp knife down the stem, and the woody tissue in the core scraped out. This is in order to maximise the contact between the two plants cambium layers. The section is then cut to size using scissors and carefully inserted into the V shaped cut. One in place the graft is made secure and the wound closed using a rubber band. The graft is then wrapped in paraflim.