I was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee after a trip to the dump and garden centre when a large Parcelforce van drew up. I went to the front door, thinking vaguely that it must be something for the Systems Administrator, and signed for a medium sized box, which I could see was addressed to me. The driver said that it was very heavy, which ruled out it being the 5 litre sprayer for Grazers I'm expecting any week now, just as soon as Amazon get round to dispatching it. I took the box, agreeing that it was heavy, and adding that I didn't have a clue what was in it but assumed I must have ordered it since it had my name on it. Then I saw the name of the sender on the address label, and the penny dropped that it was my Pottertons alpines.
I set the box down in the hall, and went to find a sharp knife to cut through the parcel tape. The space underneath the lid was stuffed with crumpled newspaper and beneath that was a layer of shredded paper, through which I could feel the outlines of pots. I was afraid that if I unpacked it outside I'd scatter shredded paper over the gravel, before spending a tedious half hour picking it out with my fingertips, so thought I might as well unpack it in the hall. The SA was at the cricket, so it wasn't as if I was going to be in anybody's way.
It was the first time I'd used Pottertons, since I started buying drought tolerant low growing plants to clothe the gravel in the railway garden, and I can't remember what put me on to them. I did think maybe I saw them at Chelsea, but looking on their website at the list of shows they're attending they don't seem to be doing any RHS ones, and it was probably that they came up online as suppliers of some plant or other that I was after. That can be as good a way as any of finding interesting new nurseries, just Google the name of an unusual plant you'd like to find and see who sells it, and what else they list. Pottertons were one of the nurseries I looked at last summer when I was buying alpines, but they lost out to a couple of other suppliers for no particular reason except that I can't buy plants from everybody each time. Still, they had a few things I particularly wanted, and since in mail order plant shopping it pays to concentrate one's business to avoid paying too many sets of postage and delivery charges, they made the final cut this time round.
The plants were very thoroughly wrapped inside their shredded paper. It must have taken somebody ages to do it, and made the postage and packing charge of £9.50 including transporting the quite heavy box from Caistor to north Essex seem an absolute bargain. The foliage of the lowest growing plants was protected by covering each pot in a cap of folded newspaper, stuck on to the pot with multiple strips of sellotape. Under the cap a layer of lightly scrumpled paper tucked around the crown stopped loose compost and the layer of grit covering each pot from shaking around among the leaves. Taller growing plants had the same scrumpled paper cover, then a second pot inverted over the first and stuck on with parcel tape. In all there was a generous amount of tape, and I needed scissors to get it off.
They were only in three inch pots, and I fetched some seed trays to stand the pots in as I unwrapped them. Then I realised that one of the trays had a lot of ants on it, which had started to run round the hall floor. I didn't fancy kneeling in the middle of a crowd of ants while I finished unpacking the box, so sprinkled a little ant powder around the tray, and then thought it really was just as well that the SA was out. Though the SA is generally phlegmatic about these things, and was quite relaxed about my using the kitchen table to build beehive parts on, still not everybody appreciates their hall being filled with shredded paper, trays of small plants, and piles of ant powder.
The plants had the blinking and bewildered air that plants have after being packaged up in the dark, leaves pointing in different directions, but not a twig or leaf was broken. They'll settle quickly enough back in the light, and look normal again once their leaves orient themselves again with respect to the sun. I have got some more of a mat former with pink flowers called Aethionema 'Warley Rose', since the ones I planted last year are doing OK, a couple of prostrate small leafed sedums, something that was recommended in the SA's book on landscaping garden railways called Frankenia thymifolia with leaves rather like thyme, a prostrate gypsophila with very fine leaves which I never heard of before but sounds as if it would be OK on light soil, plus some small berberis and a tiny Corokia cotoneaster with zigzag stems. Potterton's offer of small and correspondingly cheap specimens of dwarf shrubs was partly what made me want to put an order together. They'll grow, and I don't especially want to have to buy fully grown specimens for the railway at ten or twelve quid a pop.
Then there was an experimental white flowered ashphodeline for the gravel by the entrance, and an experimental Chatham Island forget-me-not for the deck by the conservatory. Asphodeline taurica seemed worth trying, since the yellow Asphodeline lutea sows itself so generously in the turning circle that it is almost a weed. Myosotidum hortensis is a lovely thing, with big fleshy mid green leaves that slugs love, and bright blue flowers. It is usually expensive and not easy to find. Opinions vary as to how difficult it is to keep going, but there was a strand of online opinion that it would be good in a pot for a couple of years, and I thought it would look exotic in the shady patch by the conservatory where I've already got some ferns and a hosta, and could come inside for the winter. Some bloggers say it's fairly easy from fresh seed, but of course I don't know if I'll get seed with only one plant. Still, Pottertons would sell me a youngish and fairly small plant for a fiver, and that I thought was worth a try, so my young plant is already potted into a larger terracotta pot using the same mixture of multipurpose and perlite I used for the terrestrial orchid, topped off with a few slug pellets, and I shall see how it does.
The Border Alpines order is all planted except for the gentian, and I bought a small bag of ericaceous compost for that purpose today. After Chelsea I should like some pinks and some violas, but had better deal with Pottertons first, not to mention the small army of home made plants in urgent need of potting on in the greenhouse.
No comments:
Post a Comment