Amorphophallus tuber re-potting

The bulbs from previous season have been dormant over winter and it is time to re-pot them ready for spring. They will go into the same size pots but with fresh soil.

Old pot

Tip out contents and collect all the tubers.
Over the last growing season they have grown
  small tubers on the side so these all need
to be collected as well.

They need to be cleaned to remove old soil and
checked over for weevils and caterpillars.
I used a dibber and brush.

Fill a pot with new mix (60:40 pumice-soil) to
about 5cm below the rim.
Press in the tubers and arrange them with
eyes facing up.

Add a thin layer of soil over the top to cover them.

Water them in and leave to grow.

Succulents

I really like the arrangement of these succulents, the red flower spikes and the roundness of the prickly pear makes a fun combination.

Taking Cuttings

I am now on my second placement - Cindy's Nursery! :)
The units I have to complete during my placement here are two propagation units and pest and diseases. The first propagation unit is a written part to demonstrate knowledge, the other is practical. For the practical unit I need to take leaf, softwood, semi-hardwood/hardwood cuttings and monitor their growth.

First up...collecting the plant material.

Here is all the material I collected, placed in a pot with a bit
of water to keep them from wilting and labels for each plant.
They now need to be trimmed and prepared for the cutting mix.

For my leaf cutting I have chosen Pepperomia argyreia.
I have kept about 2cm length of stem to push into the soil
for anchorage, the bottom of the leaf will touch the soil
and the new plant will grow from the base of the leaf.

Plectranthus coleoides 'marginatus'. Herbaceous/softwood cutting.
Left two leaf pairs with two nodes to go into soil

Ficus benjamina 'Diana' - Semi-hardwood.
Approx 10cm length cutting with one or two nodes
at the bottom

 Once the cuttings were prepped they were ready to be put into cutting mix - 60% peat: 40% pumice. I took about 10 cuttings of each plant so put them into 6in pots.

Ta da! Streptocarpus, Plectranthus coleoides, Pepperomia caperata 'Burgundy',
Ficus benjamina 'Diana', Ficus 'contorta?', Strobilanthes dyeranus, and Pepperomia argyreia

All pots were put on the heat bench under the misters until they start to root.

Rose Pruning

It is winter at the gardens which means rose pruning time, and several hundred of them to get through! Each apprentice was assigned  a few days at the Rose Garden to help Rachel and the team with the mammoth task.
I have secretly been looking forward to this for a while and i've been itching to know how to prune a rose. I have one in my own garden and its a curious plant, it seems to grow no matter how rude and mean I am to it, but always looks a bit spindly. I wanted to find out why, and how to professionals do it and make them look good.
So here is the magic revealed...

Tools needed: Sharpened Secateurs (parrot beak blades), Loppers,
Trowel and Wire Brush. And MOST importantly
thick leather long gloves - you cannot do this without them!!!

Start by taking out dead, diseased, damaged and defected
wood (The 4 D's). Next take down the height of the whole
 plant leaving about 50-60cm of main stems
 - all remnants of flowers/hips removed.

Next, take out thinner, spindly or crossing canes. Chose only the
stronger looking canes and cut them on a diagonal slant just
above a healthy bud. Aim for a vase-like frame work of about
10 canes remaining. It feels really harsh to reduce a huge rose
 bush to just a few bits sticking out of the ground,
 but I've been assured they will grow back!

When happy with the  pruning, clear back the soil from around
 the crown, remove any weeks and debris.
With a wire brush go over the crown to remove any loose
 bark and caked on soil. Check from crown gall as well.

And there you go. It took me a while to get the hang of which canes to cut and which to leave and I started off being fairly gentle with it until Rachel showed me I could cut back much harder. I had a fun few days. Now to come back in summer and see how they've grown.

Here is a weeping standard rose. The same principals
applied, making sure to leave outward facing buds
to promote the weeping appearance.

Here it is afterwards. we were fairly gentle with this, mostly
 taking off previous seasons growth whilst maintaining
the framework.

Hedge Maze - Design and Planting

In order for us to calculate the correct number of plants needed to go into the hedge maze we first needed a design - preferably to scale.So, I measured up the area using a straight line of twine pegged into the ground at the dissecting the site in two. I then used a measuring tape held at at 90degree angle from the line at 50cm intervals to record the distance to the edges and obstacles within the proposed maze.

From this data I created a scale plan view of the area - give or take a few cm here and there, it was moderately accurate. And I rather enjoyed the whole process :)

Scale plan view of proposed maze area

I then passed this plan on to Ali who drew up the final design for the maze and calculated how many plants were needed. (Sadly I don't have a copy of the design!!)

We were originally going to use the same coprosmas as the existing hedges, and we did take cuttings, but they will take a couple of years to grow. So Rewi ordered in some ready grown corokias to use instead.

So now we were ready to lay out the maze and get planting!!!

Ali drew the design on the ground and I placed all the plants
along the design.

I had to make sure that the spacing for each plant was going to be adequate
to allow for it to have enough room for it to grow, but also to be close
enough to not have any gaps in the maze.

When we were happy with the placing, now began the
 task of planting them all.

View of the maze entrance

Grow my pretties, grow!!!!