Courtyard-Day 5

On our fourth day as a class doing horticulture we did a lot of planting!
          Firstly we did some indoor planting. We planted hyacinths in blue plastic pots, onion sets in brown plastic pots and white daffodils in brown plastic pots.

Onion Sets

The Hyacinths; We planted these by putting compost at the bottom of the pot, then the bulb, and then more compost. We then watered them.
The Onion Sets; We planted these by filling the whole pot with compost. We then placed a load of the bulbs on top of the compost near the top of the pot.
The White daffodils; We planted these the same way as the hyacinths.

While planting all these flowers we had to be careful to place the bulbs into the pot the right way, with the radicle (beginning of the root) at the bottom and the plumule (beginning of the shoot) at the top.
          When all the plants were in their pots we put them in a warm, dark cupboard. This represents what it would be like for the bulbs to be actually outside under a lot of soil. As they grow we will begin introducing light.


Lollypop sticks were a very important part of our indoor planting. We had to write the name of the bulb on a lolly pop stick before sticking it into the compost in that bulb's pot. This allows us to know which pot contains which bulb. We also made some lolly pop ticks for the plants outside.



After cleaning up the tables, we then got all our equipment, eg gloves, trowels, forks, cultivators, rakes, shovels and wheel barrows ect. before going outside. We were split into different groups and me and Laura were given 'De Hide's baby', otherwise known as an amaryllis, to plant.



Amaryllis

We went out to the courtyard and began digging a deep hole in the ground next to where all the other plants were planted a few weeks ago. When the hole was big enough to fit the amaryllis, we put compost into the bottom of it, then the amaryllis bulb and then some more compost. We covered it over with some topsoil from the other groups flower bed.

We then went on to plant four hyacinths next to the amaryllis. We planted them in a square so they would look neat and presentable when they had grown. We made sure all the bulbs were planted the correct way round in the soil.

 

 





The other groups did two different things.

 

Group 1; Group one cultivated, weeded and evened the soil out in the flower beds around the courtyard. They also got a lot of topsoil out of it.

 

Group 2; Group two planted tulips in the bed I was weeding last week. Firstly they dug a wide, shallow hole in the middle of the flower bed.

 

 

 

They then put compost down in a layer all around the hole. They placed the tulips into the flower bed, making sure they were the right way up, before sprinkling a little more compost into the hole. They then shovelled all the topsoil back on top of the bulbs.This is when I came and began helping too. We had to go into the flowerbed and begin breaking up the soil with our hands.

 

 



 Then Ciara and Zoe began watering them with the watering can.

           We had to water all our plants, both inside and out, before finishing up.

 

 

 

We brought all our equipment back to the storage containers and classrooms, after washing them in the sinks, before heading to our next class.

 





Hyacinth, tulip and allium bulbs.



Uprooting last year's bulbs!

The flower bed after we were done!

Courtyard-Day 3

          Tuesday was our third day working in the courtyard. We began the class by looking at the different bulbs and seeds we would be planting in the flower beds. We were shown allium bulbs, tulip bulbs and hyacinthus bulbs. I was in the group that would be planting the tulips. We each took a trowel and a fork, along with putting our gardening gloves on, before going out to the courtyard.
          When we got out to the courtyard we realized that we still had to dead head some plants and uproot many others. We began by cutting the stems and leaves of the plants in our flower bed with a scissors before digging down deep into the soil to get the roots and the bulbs planted this time last year. Cutting the stems and leafs off were easy but the hard bit was uprooting the plants. We had to dig really deep down into the soil all around the root for ages until we finally got it out. They were so difficult to remove because the were massive Chinese bulbs that could flower up to 100 flowers a year. We put the waste in a big black sack but kept some bulbs for replanting.
          By the time all this was done, we had no time to plant the the tulips. This means we will have to plant them next week. I found this week of horticulture very enjoyable as uprooting the bulbs was very funny. There was mud flying everywhere as everyone put their best effort in to get the roots out. The other groups had no uprooting to do so began actually planting their bulbs. These will hopefully bloom in the spring.
         
Courtyard-Day 4
          On Wednesday a few people were asked by Mr. Stanley to volunteer to weed the rest of the courtyard. I volunteered and spent the whole morning, from 9am until 12:15pm, weeding the whole perimeter of the courtyard. Me, Zoe, Leah, Niamh, Sean, Conor and Rory all took part. We used trowels, forks, rakes, hoes and cultivators. It took a very long time as a lot of weeds were still left after the summer brake. By the end of the day though the courtyard was weed free and fully prepared for the year of planting ahead.

Courtyard-Day 2

On Tuesday we went out into the courtyard and began planting from the word go. We each got a separate plant to plant. Myself and five other girls got lavender to plant. We had to plant them in two rows equally spaced. This made the courtyard look neater and well presented.

Before planting the lavender I had to dig a hole in the ground and put compost at the bottom of it. I then broke up the roots and soil at the bottom of the plant before placing it in the hole. I filled in the hole with soil and put compost around the top, patting it down gently.

While we were planting the lavender, others were planting a curry plant, lemon balm along many other flowers and plants.

 

After we planted our plants, we began weeding the rest of the courtyard. We used rakes, shovels, trowels, wheelbarrows and a big black bag for the unwanted vegetation. This is a very important part of horticulture as weeds steal valuable nutrients from the soil. They could also overgrow the other plants as they grow much faster. After this we all tidied up the courtyard and the classroom before getting changed and going to our next class.