Another email from Will who ends up working most of the weekend and is rapidly expanding his plant knowledge...
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Last week was plant fair week and was hot and busy and slightly stressful but this week has seen rain and a definite lowering of the temperature - winter is coming....
Monday 9th March-Friday, I, the students and everyone else they could muster started preparations for the plant fair. It really involved moving plants by hand onto tractors and then riding across the road to the stone cottages, which are Botanical society meeting places and then unloading plants into their groups.
We moved hundreds of plants from shade shrubs to trees, water plants to ericas and all this had to be catalogued as well. The sorting and cataloguing was mostly done by the South African Botanical Society who tended to be older women, they were generally nice but a few were very hard to please when moving the plants around. We also had to unload other gardens plants and help construct the display by one of the horticulturists, Louise.
Come the weekend, we then had to man the display and be generally useful to the public so all the students and I did shifts. I was volunteered by Cherise to do Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon. On Saturday morning the gates opened to quite a large queue of people and the plant fair started. It was certainly busy and we had to guide people from taking the plants away from the display and show them were all the plants were kept. It was interesting but I was glad to have the afternoon off. Sunday was quite different as not a lot of people were there so it was nice and quiet. The only final task we had to do was dismantle the display and return the plants back to were they had came from.
Monday 16th March, we had to finishing taking back the remnants of the plant fair, it was fairly easy but it rained quite heavily and was pretty awful. We had a new student arrive from Germany called Lisa.
Tuesday, I went back to work with Adam. We discussed one of the succulents that I bought from the plant fair a Lithops, but nobody is to sure about its species. Adam also gave me a window plant haworthia truncata, which I potted, as well as some other succulents. I then did some maintenance to the greenhouse like getting rid of dead plants, burying pipes, fixing some drainage and weeding outside pots. We then propagated some Sutra that was dying and Adam was desperately trying to save. It has a lovely flower and makes a nice hanging plant. Weatherwise it was oddly quite cold.
Wednesday, the students and I were taught how to prune orthosiphon lobiatus and syncolostemon obermeyerii which are scented herbacious shrubs. We then potted them up as they were horribly pot bound.
Thursday, again pruning and potting up syncolostemon obermeyerii. We then just did pruning of plants like tetradinia reparia and salvia africana-lutea. After lunch we were shown how to scarify Strelitzia seeds with sulphuric acid by one of the horts called Pakhamani. It was very interesting as they were testing how long the seeds go in the acid for, and hopefully I should some of the results before I leave.
Friday, I did the Kiosk duty again just gathering cut flowers, there are some nice ones in bloom like mimetes chrysanthus, aerva leucura, some of the Plectranthus and of course the ericas. Then for the afternoon we made preparations for the Biodiversity expo next week.
This weekend I am off to Cape Town again - hope Cornwall is having a good spring.
Regards
Will Pelton
__________________
Last week was plant fair week and was hot and busy and slightly stressful but this week has seen rain and a definite lowering of the temperature - winter is coming....
Monday 9th March-Friday, I, the students and everyone else they could muster started preparations for the plant fair. It really involved moving plants by hand onto tractors and then riding across the road to the stone cottages, which are Botanical society meeting places and then unloading plants into their groups.
We moved hundreds of plants from shade shrubs to trees, water plants to ericas and all this had to be catalogued as well. The sorting and cataloguing was mostly done by the South African Botanical Society who tended to be older women, they were generally nice but a few were very hard to please when moving the plants around. We also had to unload other gardens plants and help construct the display by one of the horticulturists, Louise.
Come the weekend, we then had to man the display and be generally useful to the public so all the students and I did shifts. I was volunteered by Cherise to do Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon. On Saturday morning the gates opened to quite a large queue of people and the plant fair started. It was certainly busy and we had to guide people from taking the plants away from the display and show them were all the plants were kept. It was interesting but I was glad to have the afternoon off. Sunday was quite different as not a lot of people were there so it was nice and quiet. The only final task we had to do was dismantle the display and return the plants back to were they had came from.
Monday 16th March, we had to finishing taking back the remnants of the plant fair, it was fairly easy but it rained quite heavily and was pretty awful. We had a new student arrive from Germany called Lisa.
Tuesday, I went back to work with Adam. We discussed one of the succulents that I bought from the plant fair a Lithops, but nobody is to sure about its species. Adam also gave me a window plant haworthia truncata, which I potted, as well as some other succulents. I then did some maintenance to the greenhouse like getting rid of dead plants, burying pipes, fixing some drainage and weeding outside pots. We then propagated some Sutra that was dying and Adam was desperately trying to save. It has a lovely flower and makes a nice hanging plant. Weatherwise it was oddly quite cold.
Wednesday, the students and I were taught how to prune orthosiphon lobiatus and syncolostemon obermeyerii which are scented herbacious shrubs. We then potted them up as they were horribly pot bound.
Thursday, again pruning and potting up syncolostemon obermeyerii. We then just did pruning of plants like tetradinia reparia and salvia africana-lutea. After lunch we were shown how to scarify Strelitzia seeds with sulphuric acid by one of the horts called Pakhamani. It was very interesting as they were testing how long the seeds go in the acid for, and hopefully I should some of the results before I leave.
Friday, I did the Kiosk duty again just gathering cut flowers, there are some nice ones in bloom like mimetes chrysanthus, aerva leucura, some of the Plectranthus and of course the ericas. Then for the afternoon we made preparations for the Biodiversity expo next week.
This weekend I am off to Cape Town again - hope Cornwall is having a good spring.
Regards
Will Pelton
