On arriving at work I discovered that a coach party was due later in the morning from an international horticultural society. I had once looked up their website, after seeing a mention of them in a newspaper article, and knew that they are not a society you can apply to. Candidates for membership must normally be proposed and seconded by a member of the society resident in their country of domicile and, where possible, the application should be supported by the appropriate Vice President. That should keep the riff-raff out, then. The gardener was sent to sweep the terrace where they were to have lunch, and I was told to arrange some unusual trees that would interest them by the entrance to the shop. I wondered what constituted unusual in the eyes of a member of an exclusive international society. The Chinese version of the tulip tree seemed to cut the mustard. Its leaves are more deeply incised than the North American one, and the new leaves are tinged bronze, and it is not the common sort but the differences are subtle enough to deceive the unwary. I added a Crataegus with black fruit (in autumn, obviously, not now), a couple of obscure oaks, one of which actually said on the label that it was 'rarely available', a fastigiate Koelreuteria, and a slow growing, very beautiful lime called Tilia henryana. If you have never looked closely at the leaves of a lime tree then do the next time you're passing one, and you will see that they are asymmetrically lobed at the base. Tilia henryana in addition has lovely fringes around the leaf margins.
The coach party arrived, and fell upon the plant centre with a frantic air of so many plants, so little time. They were wearing name badges, and I discovered that the woman wearing a shin-length tunic in a psychedelic pattern, that I was helping look for Stewartia and Michelia, was a Scottish marchioness. Members of international plant appreciation societies get their plants mail ordered to them even outside the official mail order season, when lesser mortals don't always. The manager dealt with the marchioness' delivery, but I gathered that the delivery instructions included to go to the tradesmen's entrance.
Into the middle of the chaos arrived a pair of non-coach party customers, who wanted to know where they could find a Californian tree poppy. I struggled to work this one out, and showed them Romneya, which was rejected, so suggested Dendromecon rigida, which was also not what they were after. I had to abandon them in pursuit of the marchioness, promising to come back as soon as I had finished serving my other customer. They managed to flag down one of my colleagues, who suggested Dendromecon, before getting side-tracked into Escholtzia, which is Californian poppy, a pretty and easy annual flower. I began to wonder if I had misunderstood about the shrub aspect of the quest, but they said no, their old plant had grown very tall. The manager weighed into the debate, nominating Carpenteria. Eventually they mentioned that its leaves were hairy, and the hairs irritated their skin, at which point my colleague realised that they were after a Fremontodendron. We didn't have any. I do wish people would stick to Latin plant names. It makes life so much quicker and easier when you are all sure that you are talking about the same thing. They are not elitist or snobby. Invitation-only horticultural societies possibly are, but not botanical Latin.
The other excitement of the morning was that the gardener found a swarm of bees in the arboretum, low down and easy to collect. The boss was out, and we couldn't find the phone number of the beekeeper who keeps his bees there. It may not have been his swarm anyway. I rang the secretary of the Suffolk Beekeepers Association, as we were in Suffolk, and he gave me phone numbers for a couple of beekeepers in the village, who were out. I tried a couple of my friends just over the border, who were out as well, and had to go back to the secretary for more names. At the forth attempt I got through to a beekeeper in a nearby village, who happened to be working from home that morning, and was with us in less than half an hour. He hived the swarm in a little nuc box (a half sized brood box) and said he'd come back for them in the evening, if I could just check before I went home that they were still there. He was very cheerful about it. Beekeepers are generally happy to take swarms, pro bono publico, and because the bees come in useful. He knew a beginner locally who had two colonies, both queenless after a slightly muddled attempt to combine them. This was only a small swarm, but contained a queen, the vital ingredient she was after.
A party from Writtle College turned up, celebrating somebody's birthday, so I saw one of my old tutors, which was nice. She teaches one module about the use of art in the landscape, so I said I'd send her a link to the picture of the stone with the hole in it, mounted on its plinth. I'd told her about finding the stone when she came in before Christmas. I'll probably send her the link to Cardunculus, though she must have enough to do ploughing through the essays of the current crop of students, without worrying about ex-students as well.
The afternoon was rather quiet in comparison.
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