Christmas changeover day one!

Today was the first day of Christmas changeover. Had a nice relaxing Sunday, made some leek and potato soup with David and Amber, ate some delicious pastries... And then at 4.30 went into work...  The objective of the Sunday night is to clear and prepare the beds in the main and east conservatories.  This involves removing plants that are being saved, and ripping out and composting the rest. All horticulture staff, as well as the director and various office folk helps out with the Sunday night rip out. Which is pretty neat and makes for a fun atmosphere. After a briefing from Karl (mainly on health and safety stuff, wet floors etc) teams everywhere got to it. The perimeter guys were driving pallet movers with big bins for compost and soil, teams were ripping out and separating stakes and cane caps, another team was moving the Christmas tree in the west exhibition hall doors. And then as beds were cleared others were picking up plant debris, tilling, walking beds, raking beds, moving in trees... All in all, organised chaos. It was pretty cool to see it all progress.
For the duration of christmas changeover I am in working in a team with Tim (a PG) and led by Emma (a senior PG). Both awesome people and a lot of fun to work with, it was a good team to end up in. Though of course, whilst in a team it is easy to end up working all over the place. We really just worked where we were needed, but on paper we were responsible for working on the northeast corner of the orangery. For a good quarter of tonight me and Emma drove an electric cart around collected plants that were being saved and moving them to production. And then I ended up at different points of the night planting trees, clearing beds, walking and raking beds... We wound things up at about ten, went home and crashed out.

Picking up christmas ornaments and doing Chrysanthemum multiplications

First thing today me, Alan, Sara and Koa went over to the barn to pick up Christmas ornaments. There were 96 boxes, and then some more to pull. Luckily we were able to use the box truck and take it over in a couple of loads. There are masses of christmas ornament in the Barn!

After lunch I did some mum multiplications in the hood. The list of mums required for next years festival has come out, so those that are currently in culture need to be divided and pushed for production. Multiplying is a simple process, just trying to get as many cuttings as possible from the whatever good plant material is in the test tube. The cuttings can be small, down to one node and they will still grow.

Finished Christmas boxes!

OK, I realise I havent posted at all this week. But, well, thats because quite simply Ive being doing that same thing every day... Christmas planter boxes.. Yikes. But today by lunchtime we (me and Barritt) finished. It was a big job and It was mostly just me and Barritt. Once the boxes were filled with Douglas fir greenery we filled them in with Juniper branches, yellow Chamaecyparis, Winterberry holly (Ilex verticillata) and Red Twig Dogwood (Cornus sericea). They look really good and, dare I say it, festive. We made 106 in total and they will be placed in a various locations around the gardens, with the bulk of them being outside the conservatory.

After lunch Sara and I went over to the Kapf barn to start bringing over Christmas tree ornaments for the trees that Alan will be in charge of. Christmas changeover is this Sunday! Everyone in the gardens is very busy making final preparations.

More chirstmas boxes...

Weather: Clear and sunny. High of 57oF. Low of 34 ( For those not familiar with Fahrenheit, freezing is 32)

Fairly uneventful day really... Morning, cleaning up in the lab. Washing test tubes etc. The process of washing the test tubes is: First unwrap the parafilm that seals the cap,  and use alcohol to get any marker pen off. The tubes then go into the autoclave for ten minutes; not to sterilize but to soften the agar and plant material. After they come out the agar and plant material is emptied and they get loaded in to a dishwasher facing down. When washed they are stored facing down to avoid the accumulation of dust. They're then ready to be filled with agar and sterilised in the autoclave. The most eventful part of the morning was spilling a bucket of half liquid agar. Bah ha ha. Yikes, it was quite a mess but well, the floor needed to be mopped anyway.

In the afternoon we (Barrett, Emily, Kristen and myself) started filling the Christmas planter boxes with Douglas fir (Psuedotsuga sp) branches. To the greenery we will add accents such as red stem dogwood or winterberry holly. Fun really, much like floral arranging (which reminds me I have to sign up for a course...).
Douglas fir seems to be the predominant christmas tree here in the northeast. Funny really, Id always just kinda assumed that the ratty Pinus radiata saplings we use in NZ were the norm.

Christmas boxes...

Weather: Cool and clear. Warm in the sun.

Sooo... Today was pretty simple really. It consisted mainly of preparing a bunch of planter boxes to put greenery (Douglas fir, Chamaecyparis, Ilex verticillata, red stem Cornus etc) in for the Christmas season. They will go on display in and outside the conservatory.  Preparation was putting a liner in the bottom and chicken wire on top, and putting some small stones in the bottom to add weight and stability. The greenery will sit in the chicken wire. Simple task, but it took awhile as there were quite a few to complete! The liner and chicken wire had to first be cut to size and then stapled in.

After lunch a large shipment of Cyclamen came in, so I helped the production crew unload and take cardboard to the recycling center (which is looking very tidy for a change due to the new baler they've purchased). The Cyclamen were much the same as others Ive dealt with in NZ. Still plenty of Botrytis...

After that, back to boxes... Finished preparing them! But now we have to fill them with the greenery.

Research!

Weather: Cold and clear. First frost Ive seen.

Today I started in research. The research department consists of Alan Petrovich, Matt Taylor, Barret under Jim Harbridge (who is also the head of production). Plus all us students and interns. The research department introduces new plants and undertakes plant trials, oversee the tissue culture lab (used for multiplication and cleaning stock of disease), and also have some active breeding programs. While working in research I will mainly be working under Alan with the other students and seasonals. Alan mentioned that this month would involve a lot of tissue culture transfers and multiplications as well as some Christmas preparation work (the entire gardens are prepping for Christmas).

Giving Lantana standards a haircut and staking paper weiss

Two main tasks today, giving the Lantana camara (Spanish Flag) standards a autumn cut back, and staking the pots of Narcissus papyraceus (Paper Whites). I started with the Lantanas. Longwood grows a lot of standards, with some of them being quite unusual. As Sharon said in a standards workshop a few months ago, nearly any herbaceous plant can be trained as a standard if it is given support and the correct pruning. Not too long ago I saw a chilli pepper standard in the north passage. Quirky and very cool. The Lantana standards are one of Longwoods standards (pun intended), being vigorous and performing reliably. They are displayed all over the place

cont...