Crimping steel cables to vine supports

Today is very rainy and chilly.
Curator was out ill today; the greenhouse was manned by Al, B, and undergrad student L. As usual, B had tasks all lined up for me: working on the vine bench, then repotting banana plants in room C2. B is so very organized.

On the vine bench, a vine plant had been moved from a different room. The plant - Thunbergia grandiflora, blue trumpet vine - needed more support. On the vine bench the plant will be allowed to grow up a stainless steel cable to a height of 8 feet or more. But, the cable had to be installed before I could attach the plant to the cable.

To install the cable, I had to loop one end into a double-barrel ferrule, then crimp the ferrule to secure the cable from slipping out. The loop of cable is then attached to another cable running overhead above the vine bench. Several vine plants of different genera are attached to the cable system.

The trick was having to find the crimping tool in the storage room, then learning how to operate the crimping tool. I used Google and YouTube to provide instructions. Luckily, B had provided me with a bag of hardware with multiple sizes of cable and ferrules.

After getting the vine attached, my next task was repotting several banana plants. The plants had started to outgrow and split their plastic tubs. To free the root balls, I broke apart the old plastic pots. I was able to divide three of the root balls, which went into separate pots. Al recommended soil mix 1a. Last week I mixed a new batch of 1a, but this week it is almost all depleted again.

The ladies all left the greenhouse at noon. I stayed until 1p to finish repotting the banana plants. Then, cleaned the work room, and disposed of the old soil.

Photos of the cable work:

Comments

Thrip control: peppermint and clove

Here's a question: how many natural plant scents do you find repellent? The one that comes to the top of my mind is the scent of the newly blossomed corpse flower, Amorphophallus titanum . It smells very much like the name implies. If I could produce a scratch-and-sniff blog post, I would be tempted. The odor is horrible to humans, but sweet to some flying insects which are also attracted to rotting flesh. But perhaps you cannot tolerate the scent of clove, or eucalyptus? Insect pests are like us in this respect. Pests in the garden and greenhouse Insects, arachnids, fungi, and viruses. Their numbers are legion. The battle is constant. The most effective weapon is vigilance. In addition to vigilance, there are biological controls made from natural compounds which are generally non-toxic to humans. Included in this category are essential oils. For example cinnamon, rosemary, sage, neem, clove, peppermint and many others. These oils are repellent, and even toxic, to many of the pests...

Remembering my former city garden

This post is more of a journal entry than a public blog post. It is interesting to me, but won't be too interesting to almost any other reader - except perhaps my partner who was there as a co-conspirator. I want to document my thoughts about the past, my backyard garden, and what we put in it. The size of our city lot was not large. At 100 x 50 ft, there was just enough room for the house, a small garage, and back yard. The driveway was shared with our neighbor. The style of the house was standard American Foursquare, built in 1903. We bought the place in the early 1990's and slowly, over the next 25 years, renovated almost every inch the house and garden. A dry stone wall was built, with terrace bed to break up the height of the wall Caladiums and dragon-wing begonias line the steps of the front porch Well-earned sit-down on the front porch after a busy day Front wall terrace with blue phlox, hostas, astilbe, snap dragons, and coral bells. Front wall terrace, brunnera "J...

Dorset Coast, UK, 2024

I've had the privilege of visiting the United Kingdom a few times, but I had never visited the English Channel or the south coast. On a recent backpacking trip up the Thames River with friends in the county of Oxfordshire, my partner and I took the opportunity to explore a small bit the coastal county of Dorset. Route to the Dorset Coast We had ended our hiking trip up the source of the Thames River in the town of Cirencester, in Gloucestershire. From there, we took a train south to Bristol, then continued south on a train to Dorchester, in Dorset. From there, we caught a double-decker bus to Bridport. In Bridport we hiked with our meager backpacks a short distance down to the connected harbor village of West Bay. Bridport and West Bay, Dorset Since we didn't have a rented car, public transportation was our only option to get around. We chose the town of Bridport and the connected harbor of West Bay as our base for exploring the coastal trails. We chose this location because:...

City Gardener

Search This Blog