Autumn leaves & Christmas preparation

Weather: Rainy throughout the day, sometimes heavy. High of 81oF.

Started at 7, and first thing we blew off in front of the visitors center. The trees out front are a two Honey locusts (Gleditsia tricanthos) and a row of Katsura trees (Cercidiphyllum japonicum). Katsura are beautiful trees, and their flowers smell like candy floss in the Autumn! You catch the occasional sickly swift waft on the breeze. But they've also dropped their leaves much earlier than anything else, and are looking a bit bare compared to everything else. So lots to blow...

 After blowing it started to rain and Nick, Emily and I got into making up the square wreaths for the Christmas display. Cutting foam to size, wiring it on and then covering them with moss to give a background. Time consuming, but also a good activity for the rainy day.

At lunchtime there was a brown bag presentation given by a visiting research assistant from Guelph university in Canada. He talked about Guelph and the research trials he has been involved in at the university. Very interesting. One plant he showed a slide of was a Amorphophallus sp. Interesting, I just saw an article in Stuff.co.nz about a Amorphophallus that is blooming at the Begonia House in Wellington. Flowers-pungent-smell-of-rotting-flesh

Making Christmas ornaments

Weather: Rainy! sometimes steady, sometime not, but consistent for the whole day. First time in awhile.

This week is the last week of September. Yikes, has gone pretty quick. This week Im working with Nick Tomlin and Bobs team. Nick looks after the visitors centre gardens and the carpark and main entrance.
Whilst I was meant to be with Nick, I was asked early on to go help in the east plaza, or more correctly the east conservatory. We were digging out two beds that have been near the construction site and have therefore accumulated construction debris. Access to the sites was not the best, trying to get the Toros in involved a lot of slipping and sliding in a narrow construction site... Things are getting closer to being finished in the east, with the opening being intended for October 7th. Next week.

After we were finished with that I rejoined Nick and we spent the day working on Christmas decorations, working out what decorations are needed, making a couple of experimental wreaths etc. We made a trip over to the Webb barn in order to pick up supplies. I havent been over there yet, so it was good to explore some more of longwoods property. The webb barn is on the other side of route 52. The barn itself is a huge slate roofed barn, very picturesque. There are also a few more employee houses. Route 52 is currently being moved to beyond the barn, which will be nice as the meadow will extend continuously, rather than being broken by a road.

Mulching trees

Weather: Overcast, High of 87oF

Work: For the entire morning I mulched around some trees on  oak knoll with Nicole. We mulched the rings around a Tsuga seiboldii (Japanese Tsuga) and some Japanese cherries that are further east. The cherries are beautiful trees and are L numbered on their tags, which means they were here prior to Mr DuPonts death in 1957. I look forward to seeing them in the spring.
In the afternoon I watered some Pachysandra terminalis that were planted about a month ago underneath the Sycamore avenue that surrounds the main fountain garden. Whilst P. terminalis is a hardy ground cover that will take dry shade, some supplemental water is needed to help it establish, especially in the areas where it receives too much sun.
Interesting note of the day. The 'Sycamore' avenue is a avenue of Norway Maples, Acer psudoplantanus. I call them sycamores, but here sycamore is the common name of Plane trees, Platanus sp. A perfect example of how common names can lead to confusion.

Working in the rose garden, row clean up and marketing meeting

Work: I started at 8.30 today, due to having a meeting from 3.30-5 with marketing. Of which, more in a sec.

First off though, I went and helped Robin in the rose garden. The rose gardens is fairly small really, or at least in comparison to Wellington BGs rose garden. It has six main beds, some climbers trained up the surrounding stone walls, and a bed of miniatures. I started with deadheading the main beds of roses. It's done the same way as I had learnt in Wellington, taking stems back to the first or second set of five leaves. The roses are looking pretty healthy really, more so considering that its coming to the end of summer (when regardless of how diligent you are with controlling disease, roses will get something. Blackspot, rust etc...). But it has been a dry summer, and this has probably helped a lot. Robin is also committed enough to go through beds removing diseased leaves, a practise made practical by the smaller size of the garden. After deadheading I helped Robin take some soil samples that will go to the lab for analysis. A soil sample about a month ago revealed that the soil was slightly too acidic, and Robin has been liming to bring the pH up. Roses prefer a slightly acidic soil with a pH of about 6.5-6.

I left at lunch to go to row clean up. This one was pretty fun really, as it seemed I just got to play with machinery. First I weed wacked, and then I got the tractor to pick up some piles of debris in the old compost heap in order to make mowing easier. It was a learning curve as I hadnt driven a tractor that big, or with that set up before. Instead of a pedal 'forward-back', it had a stick select next to wheel. instead of gear ratios high, medium low, it had a numbered select. Bucket controls were the same though. It was good practise, and i had fun trying to use the bucket to grade the slope. And then we got training on the zero turn mower, which was also a bunch of fun. Great machine.

And then the marketing meeting... It was to help them reorganise their website, and required John Moore, Elizabeth Fite and me (all students) organising cards with website content on them (eg, "idea garden")....

Mulching, composting and deadwooding

Weather: Partly cloudy, high of 89

First thing we mulched the boxwood's in the East Plaza that were planted yesterday. It had to be done as the landscaping contractor was intending on installing the turf today, although they didn't actually end up doing it. Once the turf is laid it is not meant to be walked on for a couple of weeks to allow the turf to knit and settle without compaction.
At 9.30 I helped Robin and the team spread compost over an area of bare earth in the north of the Topiary Garden. The bare earth is the result of a large Taxus hedge being removed. It was removed due to it being in slow decline. But also, the area is earmarked to be developed, possibly by another path north towards the conservatory and east plaza. At the moment there is a wall, and on the other side of the wall is a bunch of lilacs. The lilacs, well, don't look all that great. Leggy, and also, they only flower for a couple of weeks... We spread the compost about half an inch thick, both for aesthetics, and to add organic material to the soil before it is turfed (which will be as soon as the groundskeepers get to it).

After lunch I helped Robin deadwood some trees on conifer knoll. A new tree to me was momi fir, or Abies firma, a fir native to south and central Japan.

Planting a boxwood hedge

Weather: Sunny, Average temp 86oF

Today I moved over to the main fountain gardens with Troy, Wendy and Robin. It is the only section of outdoor display that I haven't worked with as I was  last scheduled with them during orientation week. The main fountain gardens team looks after (surprise surprise) the main fountain garden, but also the topiary garden, the rose garden and the under construction east plaza.

First off for the day, me and Alana blew off and cleaned up outside the main conservatory. We also spread some mulch under two Taxus. Wendy then showed me around the east plaza, which I hadn't had a chance to see yet. Its coming along nicely, with all the planting done and the turf installed. Still, it has had its problems. The latest one was a crack that has opened up in the planted at the top of the slope... Its a steep slope and is maybe slipping a little, not so good.

Around nine we got started on the main project for the day, ripping out a yew hedge and replacing it with boxwood. The Yew hasn't been performing, probably due to the initial quality of the plants and also the drainage of the area. Troy lifted the yews out with the back hoe on the tractor, and then saved us some back breaking work by digging a trench to plant in with the same back hoe. As he put it, " the back new tires, hydraulic hoses etc very day. But you only have one back". hear hear. The boxwood's arrived bagged and burlapped. They are a good size and as they had been watered recently were pretty heavy. Unfortunately  I didn't have my camera at first which was a shame, but got some photos of the boxwoods being placed.

Rather than attempt to rush the planting we left the burlapped and will plant them tomorrow. The rest of the afternoon was spent cultivating the rose beds. I noticed that the soil mix was significantly different to back in welly, I will have to ask Robin what the mix is...



Field trip to Hershey Gardens

Weather: Overcast, high 80oF

Today we took a field trip to Hershey gardens in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The town of Hershey is (yep yep) where Milton Hershey founded the Hershey confectionery company. Hershey gardens were created when Hershey was approached and asked to donate to a rose gardens in Washington DC. He though it was a good idea, but rather than build it in Washington, he built it in his own town. It was opened to the public in 1937. The gardens started small, with just the rose gardens, but soon expanded to the current 23 acres. Hershey gardens used to be hugely popular, 20,000 people attended its opening day! And for a long time it was a popular weekend destination with people coming by train from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. But gardens are no longer the destinations they used to be, and attendance has now dropped.
Contrary to what might be thought, Hershey gardens is not rolling in dollars.Whilst Milton Hershey was a philanthropist who left  a lot of money to a school, the gardens pretty much missed out. Barbara (an ex Longwood PG who is the horticulture director) who gave us our tour told us that she had been given a grand total of $37000 over 16 years for plants. The garden is a non-profit organisation and is now supported by the town and admissions.

I thought the gardens were great, and impressive given the funding. The rose gardens were outstanding. I was interesting to hear the receive the all American rose selections every year and replace under performing roses. Not sentimental in anyway! Other highlights including some wonderful mature specimen trees, including a huge weeping beech and another giant weeping blue atlas cedar (probably the largest weeping specimen Ive seen). I thought there children's garden was fun with some pretty cool little touches (ringing bell stepping pads, fountains, maps etc. A lot of it was educational for example a ABC border. There is also  a butterfly house near the children's garden. they were all a bit slow due to it being colder than usual. The butterfly house is a huge draw card. As is the children's garden.

The stand out plant for the day was Ipomea quamoclit, A vigorous climber with masses of red flowers.

Oh and another highlight was a birdhouse competition they were holding. A good, and original idea! Some really neat arty ones

Thats a Sedum Hybrid flowering in the left photo, there are loads out at the moment. Innocuous (boring even?) for most of the year, but effective flowering in autumn. And the birdhouse on the right is surrounded by what I think is a variegated red stemmed Dogwood.

After the tour of the gardens we went to... Hersheys chocolate world! Ha. Ate to much chocolate and partook in blatant American consumerism.