The following comments were presented at the AGM by Peter Woodward, GOMPS Director and Nursery Project Manager.
Our oaks overwintered successfully; in the fall of 2017 we took them off the pallets and placed them directly on the landscaping fabric to prevent frost damage. At this point we have put them back on pallets for the summer. Being up off the ground accomplishes air pruning of the roots.
The GOMPS volunteer Garry Oak nursery is now in its second full year of operation.
Oaks in 1-gallon pots up on pallets
With the seedlings potted up from 4″ styroblocks into 1-gallon pots, all the available space on our irrigation strip has been taken up and work has started on a second irrigation strip. This will double our irrigated area.
Expansion area in foreground
We have now planted all the acorns collected last autumn and stored over winter in a fridge on site. Some 2,400 acorns were planted this spring and if 2,000 of them are viable, it will raise our total stock to about 6,000.
Acorns planted in 2″ styroblocks
About 40 to 50 plants inherited from the City’s former nursery operation have all been repotted in larger, generally 5-gallon pots. These plants are five years old or more. In addition, a few field grown oaks in the range of 10 to 15 years were root pruned in the fall of 2017
Oaks inherited from the City of Victoria in 5-gallon pots
We officially tested the backflow device in April and submitted our report to the CRD as part of our obligation with respect to our linkage to Victoria’s water supply system.
In March we delivered our second annual report to the city of Victoria.
Photos were taken by Jenny Hebb, GOMPS Director-At-Large & Nursery Volunteer Coordinator.
At this work party we had 4 volunteers contribute 13.5 hours of work.
We were very excited to see that acorns planted in April had already begun to sprout! We are also pleased to share that an expansion to the nursery is underway. An area has already been cleared in preparation for another strip of landscaping cloth and new irrigation system to be installed.
What we accomplished:
we planted the remaining 180 acorns in 2″ styroblocks
we weeded between 500 and 600 of the 1-gallon pots
we weeded all of our 5-gallon and 10-gallon seedlings, approximately 90 in total