Day Two - May 5, 2014

     Monday's adventures began with us leaving Bowness-on-Windermere and the Lake District. We headed South to Preston, where we visited Barton Grange Garden Centre.

The entrance to Barton Grange Garden Centre.

     Dr. Ponder would love to take his Retail Garden Center Management class there because it was the epitome of a great garden center. The parking lot was made out of permeable pavers, which is just one of many ways that the garden center was eco-friendly. These pavers allow water to drain through, reducing runoff that can carry oil into waterways and contribute to erosion. Inside the garden centre was a cook shop, home goods store, restaurant, farm store, and of course, a plant center. Their customer service was excellent and I bought several souvenirs from the farm store.

Barton Grange had a large selection of both out- and indoor furniture.

Their 5 year guarantee beats the 1 year warranty at our box stores, like Lowes.

5-a-Day Ray was made of colorful pots and a small portable
greenhouse. He hung over the vegetables section to encourage
customers to grow vegetables and stay healthy.

The Farm Store had many products I've never seen, like these citrus flavored cheeses.

     Next we were off to pick up Kira from the airport in Manchester. What was supposed to be a quick "take away" turned out to be quite the adventure. Let's just say navigating English roadways is not as simple as reading signs, especially when the appropriate signs aren't visible due to construction. Navigating the airport roundabouts was not easy, either!

     After finally finding our way to the terminal and picking Kira up, we headed West toward Wales to see Bodnant Gardens. The 80-acre garden featured countless varieties of rhododendrons and azaleas, a Laburnum arch, waterfalls, and large lawns. We all wish we would have had more time to explore; even a full day would not have been long enough!

We discovered Welsh, or Cymraeg, is actually another
language. I had no idea!

The backside of the entrance to Bodnant had a large
Lady Banks Rose (R. banksiae) just beginning to bloom.

One of the more formal gardens on the property, with
four paths leading to a fountain in the center.

Ethan explored on his own while Dr. Robinson stopped
for a moment to take pictures.

The Laburnum (L. x vossi) arch wasn't blooming yet but
it would soon become a tunnel of yellow flowers!

This giant sequoia (S. gigantea) was planted in 1876.

This staircase was lined with Rhododendrons and perennials.
The landscaping in this area felt very natural and relaxing.

This bridge led over a creek that once powered the corn mill inside this watermill.

This was the lowest of several terraces that led down the hill and away from the house.

After 5 minutes of walking up the terraces, I could begin to
see the house in the distance. Bodnant Gardens was huge!

Many of the staircases and walls at Bodnant had
spaces between stones for planting perennials.

The Alpine Garden on the terrace just below the house.

A view of the house across one of several large lawns.

     We stayed at Bodnant until close, then headed to a nearby town fair. The fair was closing by the time we made it to town but we spent some time exploring the area and enjoying a view of the Irish Sea. As we approached we had hopes of a beautiful, sandy beach but were instead met with a bed of boulders. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the views and took time to appreciate the old European architecture of the town.

The shore was slick with algae and kelp
but it had a nice view, nonetheless.

     Next we made our way to Chester to check in at the hotel Mercure, where we stayed for the night. After taking a few minutes to put away our luggage and relax, we headed to the town centre to get dinner. This area of town was known as "The Rows" and is part of the rich history of Chester. Many of the historic buildings had been maintained, allowing us views of several breathtaking cathedrals and Tudor architecture. Most of the stores had closed by this time (around 8:15pm) but we were able to find a little restaurant, Bella Italia. We were lucky to find Italian food. With all the walking we've been doing, we need all the carbs we can get!

     After a delicious and filling meal, we quickly made our way back to the hotel for some well-deserved sleep. Now to prepare for the excitement of Biddulph Grange and Chatsworth House tomorrow. Stay tuned!

War Eagle!
Jeremiah DeVore

Day One of the Orr Trip to England

Posted by Hanna Pettus

All the second year public hort kids and three undergraduates (Britton Garrett, Savannah Duke, and Jennifer Derrow) made the trip to the UK and arrived early Sunday morning in Manchester. The less-than-comfortable 8 hour flight left us jet lagged but more than excited to begin our international journey. After the long wait to get through customs (made better by free WiFi!), we hit the ground running.

Our first stop was Levens Hall in Kendal. The Elizabethan style house was built around a 13th century Pele Tower and Great Hall. An expansion was made to the house in the 16th century, adding oak panelling, intricate plasterwork, leather wall hangings, tapestries, early furniture, paintings, and other historic and fine objects. What amazed us is that there are still people living there today and can be seen occasionally wandering around with the general public. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed inside the house.

The most important part of our stop at Levens Hall was, of course, the gardens. They were designed in 1694 by Monsieur Guillaume Beaumont, the gardener for King James II that worked at Hampton Court Palace. Levens Hall gardens is the only garden he designed that still remains today. The topiary garden is magnificent and is the oldest in the world. The property also had a rose garden, an orchard, a nuttery, a fountain garden, an herb garden, vegetable borders, a beech hedge walk, herbaceous borders, and a bowling green. There was even a local croquet club meeting on the bowling green during our visit!

One view of the topiary garden.

A ha-ha. These are used to keep sheep out of the gardens without being aesthetically unpleasing, meaning you can't see it until you about walk off of it. One side gently slopes in until it reaches a vertical drop, which is usually a stone wall about 4-6ft. It's called a ha-ha because of it's "amusing" nature when someone would stumble upon the sudden drop.

After Levens Hall, we stopped in the town of Kendal for lunch before making our way to the hotel. We stayed in The Belsfield, in Bowness-on-Windermere. This was in the Lake District, north of Manchester, and absolutely beautiful. The main highlights included lakes, rolling hills, lush green foliage everywhere, and sheep galore. Not to mention the town: picturesque, as if out of a movie.

The streets of Bowness-on-Windermere.

View of Lake Windermere from our hotel's restaurant.

A shot from the car as we drove through the Lake District.

More posts from our England trip are coming soon!

Last Post Until England!

Posted by Hanna Pettus

First, let me apologize for the lack of pictures in my post. I've never been much of a picture taker unless it's of baby animals or pretty flowers. So, sorry about that. 

Moving on...

This week was the annual First Ladies Campus Club plant sale. While there are many plant sales that happen around Auburn in the Spring, this one had particular importance to me because I had to coordinate volunteers to help load, transport and unload plants, as well as work the actual sale. This was a part of a project requirement for my practicum class. Finding the volunteers was actually easy, since there were students in the herbaceous ornamentals labs that needed "work hours" for a grade, so there were many that were willing to help out. We loaded up plants from the greenhouse complex on Monday, in the POURING rain. We were all soaked. April showers bring May flowers, though, right? That's what's I kept telling myself as water sloshed in my shoes... At least there were a lot of people to help so we had everything moved in about 45 minutes. The plant sale itself went much more smoothy because it was moved inside. I think in the end they made about $1850, which is good considering the weather and sudden change of plans. On Thursday we had a meeting about our upcoming trip. What trip you may ask? The one where we go to England for a week! The fab 5, along with three undergraduates and Dr. Eakes and Dr. Robinson, will leave May 3 on the annual Orr trip. We will be flying in to Manchester and working our way down to London and flying out of there on May 11. Be sure to check back then because we will be blogging from across the pond! Soon we will also be adding another cohort to our midst, so there will be four new bloggers to hear from.

We can't wait to share our UK travels with you!  

Until then,

Hanna P. 

Colorado and a Camel

Hello readers -- Kira Chaloupka, here!

Well, as usual, I'm a week late, but not a word short. I've got plenty to share from the past few weeks in my Dean's Office Update!

I guess I'll start with spring break. It tends to be one of the best times in Auburn because the sun starts to warm things up outside, flowers start blooming and students are gone. This was a wonderful week to get things done with less distraction and spend a little time outdoors.

But as that week came to an end, the travel began! I had the opportunity to attend PLANET's Student Career Days, which Hilary talks about in her post. The main goal was to conduct some research and research I conducted. With the assistance of Amanda and Hilary, we had over 220 students visit our "Make Your Mark" booth at the career fair. With the terrific turnout I am looking forward to analyzing the data and figuring out what makes a horticulture student tick. Besides all the work, we did have a little fun... Amanda and I drove the roads of Colorado, visited several towns and enjoyed some of the best food I've ever tasted. We visited Golden, home of the Coors Brewery, climbed the peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park, explored the shops of Boulder and navigated our way through Fort Collins. All of this was done with the help of Sally the Subaru. She was a trooper. While our time was well spent in Colorado, we had much to look forward to in return to the Plains.

Rocky Mountain National Park

Make Your Mark booth with Amanda and Hilary

I wasn't a fan of the cold.

What was the last week of March this year? Nothing less than Ag Week! A celebration of Agriculture by the College of Agriculture body through various events hosted for students by students. The week started off with a lecture, featuring a representative from Hormel Foods Monday and an outreach to the University student body was done through Tea & Tie-dye on Tuesday. Wednesday, also known as Hump Day, was the Annual Ag Hill Picnic, with special guest Clyde the Comer Camel. Feasting on fish and chicken or photo op with Clyde, students, faculty, staff and community members had a great time fellowshipping on Comer Lawn. Thursday was a busy one with a breakfast starting at 7:30am (a wakeup call of 4:30am) on the Green Space, which included Alabama products like Poultry Science eggs, Conecuh sausage, and Mary B's biscuits. That evening the second annual Ag Island Games were hosted with competitive games and a chance to hold the title of Ag Island Champions. From Slip-n-slide sponge relays to inch-worm crawls and barn sweeps, the students had good clean fun and it's quite entertaining from the sidelines. Friday has become a day dedicated to youth education and this year the Boys and Girls Clubs were the audience of agriculture education. Saturday wrapped the celebration up with Ag in the Park, a prospective student event revolving around the baseball game. The week may have included early mornings and lots of hard work, it came with the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction because if one person learned anything about agriculture, then the week was a success.

This is a great depiction of us -- Amanda, Sarah and myself

The Student Services staff with Clyde!

We've slowed down a good bit since then, but as I look toward the summer and even farther into the fall I see much more travel... There are five conferences scheduled to be attended this summer and at least four road trips planned for the fall. I will be sure to include those in my updates as my turn rolls around to post. Stay tuned...

KLC

Auburn Shade Garden!

     It's been very busy in Funchess lately, as we begin to wrap up the semester and continue our research! This semester all of the public horticulture students are taking Practicum. Over the past few months, Dr. Williams has lead us in developing a Shade Garden for Auburn's campus. We've pruned trees, removed stumps, weeded, and worked together as a class to design the garden. The Shade Garden's plant collections will be used for horticulture classes and appreciated by students walking to campus from nearby parking lots.

     March 31st was a major work day for the Shade Garden. We had the daunting task of preparing the soil, planting the first phase of the garden, and spreading mulch. When we arrived Heath had already placed mounds of pine bark all around the site. We began leveling the bark out with rakes first. I never could have imagined what we accomplished in only a few short hours; it was hard work! Luckily I was able to catch some pictures of the progress!

Plants and mounds of pine bark on our empty canvas.

We were lucky to have Heath and the skid steer (left) help with the labor. He pulled a tree stump out of the ground with no problem! The skid steer couldn't reach every area, so we did some leg work to fill in gaps of pine bark. Hanna and Leah (right) took a break from loading wheelbarrows to pose glamorously with their shovels.

The pine bark was spread to a depth of about 3 inches, to be mixed in as a soil amendment. Jay (left), Jayne (middle), and Hanna (right) all pitched in on the work!

Monte helped Kira (left) and several of us mix in the soil amendment using a rototiller. It was a quite learning experience! After a little while, Brent (right) stepped in to finish tilling the rest of the space. His landscaping experience really sped up the process!

Once the soil was tilled and weeded, we began the fun part: planting! Leah and Kira (left) planted a bush while John and Michael (right) dug holes for perennials. We were only able to install a portion of all the plants in the design. But don't worry! The garden will grow over the years, as more specimens are added to the collection!

Monte showed off his mastery of drip irrigation systems by installing hoses through the entire garden in less than an hour. Drip irrigation systems are much more efficient than traditional sprinklers. While traditional sprinklers lose a lot of water to evaporation, drip irrigation systems apply water directly to the soil through perforated hoses, minimizing evaporative water loss.

 Our next step was to spread pine straw mulch. A decent layer of mulch can make all the difference in a garden: fewer weeds, better water retention in the soil (great for hot summer days!), and less soil erosion during heavy rains. Not to mention that nice, clean look it gives a garden!

Dr. Williams and Seth admiring all the work we accomplished; the Shade Garden finally looks like a garden!

     After the long day, I couldn't wait to go home and relax! Instead, I had to study and grade papers. Being a part of Auburn's Department of Horticulture is never dull. Through projects like this we are able to leave our mark on campus for people to enjoy for years to come. The work never ends, but I love it!

War Eagle!
-Jeremiah DeVore