We are finally going to have a computer out in the shop, so that we will be able to send e-mails about the availability of plants and suchlike without having to go up to the office. They are going to lay a cable when they dig a trench for the drains for the new tea room. Next spring. Still, it's something to look forward to.
Somebody rang wanting advice about retaining moisture around the hundreds of trees she had planted this spring, and we had a long conversation about whether she could use the chippings from a large horse chestnut she'd had removed (undesirable, better to let them compost down first) and whether a mulch of mushroom compost would help (yes, brilliant stuff, use it myself, just don't pile it in contact with the trunks, and best to apply when the soil is less dry). She has a bowser, and watered all the trees every week this summer, and couldn't face doing it again. We got on to the properties of clay soil (some of the water in it is bound so tightly to the tiny soil particles that it isn't available for plants to take up, so they aren't necessarily all that drought resistant. Mushroom compost will help over time) and how severe and widespread the drought was. She went away sounding happy and said our chat had been very useful. Unfortunately it won't result in a single extra penny through the till, at least in the immediate future.
Somebody else rang asking if we had any liquidambars, and I spent a long time describing what we had, and how big they were now, and how much money, and what colour their leaves went in the autumn. Then he asked if we could send one, because he lived in Lincolnshire, and I had to explain that we could send the small plants by mail order, but not the ten foot trees. He wanted a ten foot tree, because he said he didn't have that many years left, and that he was on dialysis, and getting to us would be difficult. I felt very sorry that he had kidney failure, which I know is life-limiting even with dialysis, and leaves you feeling grotty, but I couldn't help him with the large trees. They are too big to send by mail order. The parcel company wouldn't and couldn't do it.
Somebody else rang asking if we could keep some reserved plants for longer, because she couldn't get over to collect them because her husband was ill. It turned out that he was in hospital with pneumonia. I promised I would make a note on the plants that she still definitely wanted them, but might be delayed collecting them, and told her that she had other things to worry about and should not worry about the plants.
I rang a woman who was down as wanting a fan trained apricot. She sounded slightly surprised that she could have wanted such a thing, and explained that she wasn't well, and hadn't been for fourteen months because she'd had a bad fall, and she'd had to get somebody in to Do the garden, and the garden was a mess. I suddenly realised that it was The Woman Who Wanted 16 Lavenders. Then she told me how difficult the soil in her garden was, and how all the trees she planted in it died, and I thought she should probably not have a fan trained apricot. I have seen the roots on these fan trained fruit trees, which we potted up ourselves, and they are teeny-tiny, not at all suitable for an elderly and ill lady with rubbish soil and dubious garden help, so I had to talk her out of having an apricot, at least this year. It turned out that she was very pleased with the lavenders and believes that our plant centre is wonderful, which was nice.
A cheerful-sounding woman who lives near York was delighted that we could send her a crab apple whip by post. She was one of the people I rang yesterday to let them know that their plants had arrived, and it hadn't been recorded on the paperwork that she lived at the other end of the country, although I had thought that I didn't recognise the dialling code. Another person I rang yesterday came in today to collect her plant, but it was a Cornus that only cost £8.95. And unfortunately not enough people thought we were wonderful, and we didn't take much through the till, despite our best efforts telephoning people.
The gardeners and the owner spent the morning cutting Christmas trees. Due to past management, or lack of it, the trees grown on the estate are mostly rather tall and skinny. This year some of them have grown a fine crop of cones, the first time I've seen them do that. Because our house is split level (very 1960s) the sitting room rises to one and a half storeys high, so we like a tall tree, and the price of the trees at work is very reasonable, maybe reflecting the limited local demand for trees 4m high. This leaves us with a nice decision to make, which I will put to the Systems Administrator, though maybe not this evening as the rich fruity cold, which had been showing signs of abating, has returned with a vengeance. It is a bit earlier than I would like a tree, as they will have been cut for 20 days already by Christmas Day, and a fresh one nearer the time would be better. The gardeners cut 30 trees today, more than we usually harvest. If they sell well they may cut some more, and I can have one that was chopped down closer to Christmas. If they don't cut more then we'll end up with one from this batch anyway, but the nicest ones will have gone and we'll be left with the oddly shaped, weird, and mutilated ones to choose from. Games Theory is right up the Systems Administrator's street, so we could be in for a prolonged discussion of tactics.
The manager looked at the dead damson tree and said he thought it had been hit by a strimmer, judging by the horizontal line of damage in the bark. The owner told me that I had done the right thing to stick to procedures. They are going to give the horrible woman a free replacement tree anyway. I knew they would. I suggested to the manager that maybe we could have a list of customers to whom the normal rules don't apply, because they have spent a lot of money, or are friends with the owners, or big influential cheeses on the East Anglian dinner party circuit. If they are going to get no-questions-asked replacement plants anyway, the staff might as well not bother trying to apply the normal procedure for returns, and be saved a distressing encounter. The manager said that was a good idea. It won't happen.
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