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Repotting a Heliconia augusta plant

 I cycled to the Greenhouse for the second time this season. The weather was cool (in the 50s F), and a bit drippy, but I didn’t get soaked thank goodness. 

On arrival I met Al... in the greenhouse. She had repotting chores for me to do. There is a small tree (Cotoneaster frigidus) busting out of its plastic pot - 14 inch diameter. However, I couldn’t find a larger pot anywhere in the building. There was one terracotta pot in the store room, but it was stuck inside a larger terra cotta pot. I couldn’t get them separated, and at one point the rim of the larger pot cracked. I let Al know the chore would have to wait until we got a suitable pot. I’m a bit afraid I was too aggressive trying to separate the two pots. *Blush*

There were two smaller plants in the ginger family that needed repotting. The larger of the two was Heliconia augusta (red christmas heliconia). Since the plant was already in the largest plastic pot we had in the greenhouse, Al decided we should simply split it and toss out the excess. The replated roots would then have more room to grow.

The smaller of the two gingers is Elettaria cardamomum (the cardamom plant). It currently doesn't have any flowers or seeds. We also split this plant and discarded the excess (actually, Curator J brought the excess plants to a botany class for use).

The soil bin for #1a was quite low after my repotting efforts, so I decided to mix up another batch. The process is quite involved because a large portion of the mix is coconut coir. The coir is stored in large compress blocks. The blocks must be rehydrated to break them up into fibers. The block triples or quadruples in size as it soaks up water and falls apart. My hands became a bit sore after working with the coir to get it all broken up and rehydrated. I did the rehydrating in the workroom so I could titer the water, and do some of the repotting work while I waited for the coir to hydrate.

The recipe of the 1a mix is: 3 parts coir, 2 parts pumice, 1 part sand.

While the coir continued to hydrate, I had to find a new bag of pumice, located in the basement of the building. And, I had to cart a bucket of sand across the building from a storage room to the store room for the greenhouse where I was preparing the mix.

All said and done, there was a lot of running around the building to get the mix prepared. But, it was worth the effort because now the bin is at least 2/3s full, and will last at least another week.

After leaving the greenhouse I walked over to the student center to figure out how to complete the process to obtain an ID badge for the greenhouse - which I need to allow me entry into the locked doors of the greenhouse. I arrived at the post office desk where such things are managed.  There was a young man and woman sitting at the desk (student workers I assume) who were very helpful. They brought up on their computer the application Director had completed the previous week. The man snapped my photo and a few minutes later an ID card spat out of a machine. I now have an official U of M ID card. Curator J asked me to send images of the card, front and back, to him. He will then arrange for the card readers in the greenhouse to recognize my ID.
Heliconia augusta



Cardamom plant (Elattaria cardamomum)

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