Thurs 1st Oct

Started in Glass today. One of my first sight was seeing a cockroach on its back twitching, apparently they have two lungs and if cut in half, both halves would still survive for ages. It is the autumn clean up at the moment, which is like chemical warfare, 8 - 10 weeks of intensive spraying, almost once a week, both the display and service houses. For example - 2 weeks of 'Conserve', 1 week of Calypso, 1 week of Desis, a weeks break for the plants then SB Invigorator. Calypso and Desis leaves a powderyness on the plants so then a 'white oil' is used to buff up the plants and give the leaves a shine.There is a spring clean up.

I worked specifically with Sandra today, we started the routine task of brushing the floor in the display houses, watering and damping down. For these 5 weeks I will be working in the temperate zone, there are three - temperate, arid and tropical. I gave a good long water (1hr) to what they called the Macrozamia bed - cycad related genus. It was a mixture of leafy plants - Phoenix reticulata, Thunbergia, some SW australian med plants like Grevillea johnsonii, New Zealand Metrosideros etc. Then we did pretty much the same to the temperate and arid service houses but with a 1:1:1 feed also.

Then I helped moved some substantially big agaves outdoors to indoors, armoured with visors and leather gloves, using a sacktruck. Sandra gave me a walk around of the Arid House which includes an extensive Plectranthus collection - trailing types in baskets were propagated by cuttings in March, both for an autumn display. for the shrubby ones, she props in January and June, and tries to keep an stock plant of each species and cultivar for this purpose. She also has collections of Euphorbia (cacti like one and one that looks like a cotinus called E. cotinifolia & E. millii, Echeveria, Cacti, Kalanchoe, Aeonium, Aloe, Protea and various S. African bulbs like the Boophone - bigger than ones at Kew etc. Different bulbs has different points of dormancy. Watering - cactii and succulents likes as much water as more leafy plants in the height of summer.

Photo 1: The Arid House. 

Photo 2:  The plants sit on these portable tables that does not have a solid but grid surface, so when watering all the soil and excess water goes onto the ground, which can then be swept up.