Winter is drawing closer. It may still be technically autumn, but the doors of the polytunnels in the plant centre were shut this morning, and after lunch the gardener was told to set the paraffin heater up on bricks, ready for use. He must have filled it, too, since a powerful smell of paraffin hung on the air in front of it.
My job was to continue bringing herbaceous plants in under cover for the winter. Dianella, Liriope, Libertia and Kniphofia can none of them be trusted to over-winter outside in a black plastic pot. Up to five pots of each variety go on the ground in front of the heater: that's why it's on bricks, so that it will blow warm air over them rather than straight at them. Any surplus pots over and above five have to go in the tunnel on The Other Side, and take their chances without a heater. I'm not entirely sure why we bother with the heater, since all sorts of things end up spending the winter months in the back up polytunnel, and not many seem to die of cold. Plants that need the protection of a cold conservatory is about as tender as we mostly stock: we don't do any needing a heated conservatory as a minimum.
Dianella and the rest of them are united in their tendency to develop discoloured brown or dead leaves, that need removing to make the plant look smart in its pot. Liriope are not such offenders as the others. I grow them in the garden at home, and am quite pleased with the result, without spending hours grooming out old leaves. Libertia tends to become tatty with age, and I don't like it so much as I did a decade ago.
I had to explain the pollination requirements of Skimmia to one customer, whom I gathered had taken over garden duties beyond mowing the lawn after his wife died. He lamented that they were complicated. The existence of one hermaphrodite form, capable of berrying by itself, confuses the issue slightly, but apart from that I'd have thought that Skimmia were pretty straightforward. The concept of separate male and female plants, the females bearing berries and the males needed for pollination, is a very small step from the human model. Apples are far worse. Do I need a male 'Cox' to fertilise my female 'Cox'? Trying to explain that apples are not male and female per se, but require a different variety for pollination, is a much larger leap away from the human equivalent, and as for when you get to triploids...
The varifocals were great, though. It's such a novelty being able to see the customer, the price labels on their plants, the till, and the credit card machine all at the same time while maintaining an upright position.
As the afternoon went on it began to drizzle, a fine, persistent rain. Three lady customers who had arrived quite late chortled to me as they walked past that 'they must be mad'. It is no use expecting anyone working in a plant nursery to admire you for walking around in the rain looking at plants with a view to purchase. After all, you are free at any point to declare Sod it, I'm freezing, let's come back when it's dry. The staff are stuck there until close of play. Our advertised closing time in winter is Dusk, a distressingly vague concept, and I wish we could just say 4.00 pm like the Chatto Gardens do. The ladies seemed to take a fairly generous view of when Dusk was, as they wandered around still looking at plants, now with the manager in tow. At five past four I took a phone message, and at ten past another, and then, as the manager was temporarily detached from his ladies and carrying a tree about for them in the rain, I asked if I should cash up two of the tills and could I go home now, please?
There was no progress to report on the kitchen sink. It wasn't the weather for dismantling the plumbing, or even using power tools outdoors.
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