Cloud forest room and tank maintenance

Today, June 8th, was a relatively simple day at the greenhouse. I spent the first hour watering plants in room C1. I captured the images above from some of the many flowering plants in that “cloud forest” room. The two stacked photos are, of course, orchids. The other is a rhododendron, very fragrant. Since it is summer, and quite warm outside, many of the plants can use extra water, I was generous with it.

The second part of the 3-hour shift was spent helping B... and Curator J... to clean the water-plant trays and tanks in room C3. I have cleaned these two tanks in the past, and the job is quite a chore. The reservoir tanks below the table trays are quite heavy, and they do not have drain holes. So, they must be pulled out and emptied of 100-200 gallons (or so). B and I slid one of the reservoirs full of water just enough so I could tip it up a bit to drain the old dirty water. In the process of helping me, B injured the skin on two of her fingers (requiring bandages to stop the bleeding). But, she is a trooper and was soon back in the saddle helping to finish the job. I may have a bit of a sore lower back tomorrow, but at the moment things feel fine down there.

I cycled home (downhill and with the wind), it was a beautiful ride through the campus in St. Paul, and on through Minneapolis Dinkytown along the commuter trail.

I came home with dirty wet shoes from the tank-draining activity. I’ll give the shoes a hand-wash to see if I can keep the smell out of them.

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Rebuilding the support for vanilla vines

Raining in February The morning began with a walk in the rain from my car to the Conservatory greenhouses - in the month of February. According to the calendar, we should be in the depths of winter. The precipitation today should be snow not rain. The storm system that we're experiencing is probably related to drenching rains moving inland from the west coast. I met Coordinator A... at the door of the Conservatory. His office desk faces one of the main doors to the building. He cannot escape observing everyone who enters...poor guy, it must be distracting for him. Anyway, as soon as I entered the building we started to discuss his plan for my activity of the morning. He offered me the project of rebuilding the support for vanilla vines which have been suffering from overexposure to sunlight and dry air. A bit of background The vanilla plant (Vanilla planifolia) is in the orchid family. It is native to Central America and Mexico. The seed pods were used by the Aztecs to flavor coc

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