Pedro to Spain, Jill Stays to Troubleshoot

Pedro received a telegram from his mother asking him to fly home urgently. His father was admitted to hospital—he was seriously ill. “In this age of e-mails and instant messaging, my mother sends a telegram,” was his first response. “I guess old habits die hard.” Then he flew off to Mallorca, leaving me in charge of three large glasshouses growing long stemmed cut Roses,

Even though our operation was fully automated and we had a Command Bunker from where to observe and supervise, I still felt a knot in my stomach. My first thought was “I’m going to miss Pedro. How am I going to run our business without him?”

He was certainly comforting to have around. He checked and double-checked everything, so you could be sure that all possible things have been done to grow the finest Roses our hydroponic ebb and flow multi-bucket system is capable of producing.

It’s not that I could take it easy, I did my share of the work, but the smooth running of the operation depended on Pedro’s presence. And now he was gone.

I had him write down all the phone numbers I could possibly reach him at, as well as his several e-mail addresses. He promised to check his messages, both on the phone and on his laptop.

The first few days were hectic as I rushed from greenhouse to greenhouse, making sure that the Roses looked okay. I could have stayed in the Command Bunker and viewed their progress on the video monitors, but I chose to trust only what I could see with my own eyes.

“Just monitor the readings,” chided a senior staff member, but secretly I didn’t trust all the electronic instruments and sensors. “Electronics have been known to report erroneous readings,” became my mantra.

All of our Roses are still in their vegetative growth stage, but in a few weeks we’ll be switching from Iguana Juice Grow to Iguana Juice Bloom and changing the lighting schedule to start the flowering cycle. The Roses in the first two Greenhouses, the Blue Rose and the Red Rose, were growing according to plan. Hybrid Tea Roses are supposed to reach heights of 4 to 6 feet, depending on the variety.

I figured that during veg growth, when the plants are establishing their roots and strengthening their stems, as well as filling out with leaves, the average Hybrid Tea would get around three feet tall. A height perfectly manageable without stakes or any other means of support in our hydroponic buckets, using cocopeat as our grow medium.

Then during the budding and flowering stage the plants might grow another foot to two or three feet, depending on the hybrid. The multi-colored Roses in Greenhouse Three, Granada and Ambience, however, were shooting up like there was no tomorrow!

Just like Pedro, I checked and double checked everything, and the Nutrient Solution in Greenhouse Three seemed to be exactly the same as in the other two Greenhouses. Iguana Juice as the basic fert, mixed with Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid, to recreate organic soil conditions in a hydroponic setting.

Also Carbo Load Powder, to add sugars that will be needed during bud formation, along with Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice, to colonize our root systems with beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes, respectively. Oh, and Organic B, a B-complex vitamin designed to reduce plant stress.

I checked all the quantities of each ingredient, and that’s when I stumbled across the problem. The Iguana Juice Grow in Greenhouse Three was obtained from a local, Mississauga Garden Shop, and it must have been an old batch.

Advanced Nutrients switched to a more concentrated form of Iguana Juice some time ago, changing the recommended application rate from 15 mL per Liter to 3.5 mL per Liter. The staff member who was responsible for the Nutrient Mix in Glasshouse Three, got used to the original application rate, and when the new batch of Iguana Juice arrived, he continued to use it at the old rate, even though he should have been using much less of it.

Since Iguana Juice Grow is 100% organic and very gentle on plants, no harm was done, except for the incredible growth spurt of the Granada and Ambience Roses. Some of them surpassed five feet and rising to almost six feet in height! They started bending over and showed signs of needing support.

I got a hold of Pedro and laid out the problem for him. He was understandably upset and said that the sensitive instrumentation should have caught the problem. “What about the discrepancy in Parts Per Million?” he fumed. I was more concerned about support for our really tall Roses.

Pedro air shipped a huge rope net with large enough holes to fit our Rose plants through and as soon as it arrived the staff and I stretched it over the Roses in Greenhouse Three and very gently guided each plant through its own hole in the netting. Then we secured the netting with a special pulley system that came with instructions from Pedro.

Actually, he sent three of these huge nets, one for each greenhouse. So we stretched them over the canopy of shorter Roses, ones that didn’t need the support just yet, but once they reach full height, they might.

“Hybrid Tea Roses might take two or three years to reach their full height,” explained Pedro during a trans-Atlantic phone call. “After that, even if you prune them, they’ll grow to that height, no matter what.”

“The average life that the guide books give for Hybrid Tea Roses is six to ten years, unless you give them exceptional care. My family in Mallorca must have learned to give exactly such exceptional care to our Roses, because some of them have continued to provide us with marketable, long-stemmed Roses for fourteen-years or more. Some Species and Climbing Roses will live 50 years or more and continue to produce flowers!”

His father, as it turns out, was all right. It was just a false alarm. “My parents like to have guests over and then they serve these lavish meals with huge bouquets of Roses on the table and red Spanish wine flowing freely. My father must have overeaten and drank too much Sangria,” explained Pedro.

I couldn’t resist. “When are you coming home?” I asked trying not to show my need of his presence. “Soon, my darling Jill. Then we’ll make sure that the correct formulas are followed in the feeding of our Roses.”

I knew I wouldn’t be able to relax completely until his plane touched down at Pearson International in Toronto this coming weekend.