Today was a little busier, and buzzier, which was more fun, besides which, we need the sales. The owners put a positive gloss on yesterday's efforts, saying that the customers all enjoyed it, and that there were plenty of people on the guided tour and at the pruning talk, though they could have done with a few more at the tree planting. That's fine as far as it goes. We want customers to have a good time, and there are few things more dispiriting than talking to a group when the number of people who have bothered to turn up could be counted on the fingers of one hand, but the aim is to drum up business. Saving our own blushes and making members of the public happy isn't enough.
Today's customers certainly did seem to have a nice time. An old boy who had come over from Saffron Walden because he loves trees was in very heaven. His companion professed to be more into vegetables, but had a good day as well. They asked about cherry birches, or Betula lenta, of which we had none left, but I showed them where to find the rarest trees, and he bought a nice young form of Betula utilis called 'Buckland' and professed himself very happy with it. Then we fell to talking about trees in general, and the discovery in Australia of the Wollemi pine that was thought to be extinct, and I was able to show him one of those, as we had one. He touched it with great reverence. They went on the garden tour, and had some tea in the cafe, and had another look round, and the vegetable enthusiast added to his purchase of 'Aquadulce Claudia' broad beans, the variety generally recommended for sowing in November, with a small Corokia, explaining he just liked it. They went away very happy.
Two ladies who are regular customers came in for tea. One asked when we'd be getting raspberry canes in, explaining that some of hers had died but she wasn't sure how to tell where the gaps were until next spring when the row started sprouting, so how would she know where to put the replacements in if she bought them now, and if she waited until spring might we have sold out? I suggested that if she bought a bag when they came into stock she could heel them in over the winter and move them as soon as the old row started into growth, or alternatively she could probably find suckers in parts of the garden she didn't want them, and move those, since in my experience raspberries were travelling plants. She was quite pleased with this idea. It is my job to sell plants, but there's no merit in getting old ladies who are regular customers to buy bags of raspberry canes that they don't need. Far better in the long run that they feel they are getting their money's worth.
A couple who had recently moved to the area wanted advice on where they could buy house plants other than a supermarket, which had me racking my brains since I only possess four house plants, and two of those did come from supermarkets, while the others came from the gardeners' stall at the National Trust garden at Wallington, and a WI meeting where I was doing a woodland talk. The WI find is a spider plant, bought out of sentiment because I used to grow them when I was a child, and it has ended up living in my bathroom which suits it so well I don't have the heart to move it, despite the fact that it is in the way and I have to pull all its dangling stems of babies aside each time I want to get in the cupboard for fresh loo roll or a clean face flannel. They also wanted to order a tree, and when I took their telephone number I realised they must have moved into the village itself. I asked whether they by any chance liked classical music and they did, and had already got themselves season tickets for the music society, but I was able to give advice on how they could find a suitable choir to join. You don't get that in B&Q.
I boosted the day's takings modestly myself by yielding to temptation and buying a Meyer's Lemon. I've wanted one for ages. It is a particularly cold hardy variety as citrus grow, and supposed to be a good vigorous doer. The blossoms smell exquisite, and while in the long run (if it lives that long) it will have to spend winters in the greenhouse, I thought that while it was still small it could go on the hall table. The manager found a supply of them at a remarkably good price, for citrus, and I sold two others over the weekend to bona fide customers. One asked how the fruit were fertilised in the winter, when there were no insects flying, and the manager explained that the pollen bearing stamen gradually bent over until the plant fertilised itself. That was a good question, and one I'd never thought to ask.
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