The postman arrived early this morning, and tapped on the door because he had a parcel for me. He seemed mildly disconcerted by the sight of the ample white tummy of Our Ginger, who was lying flat on his back in the hall soaking up the morning sun, and didn't move a whisker as I stepped past him and opened the front door to within inches of his head. He is a friendly postman, and wished me a nice day. The box contained my tiny plants from Dibleys, so I was glad to have it in my hands and not discover it hours later cooking gently in the porch.
Dibleys Nurseries are specialists in streptocarpus, plus African violets, begonias, and assorted other tender plants. They are based in North Wales, and every year put on a brilliant display at Chelsea. We were once driving home around a congested M25 and kept passing and being passed by a Dibleys van, since when we've shared a standing joke that it is still circling the London orbital, trying to gather sufficient momentum to break free in Douglas Adams fashion and escape back to Ruthin.
This year's Dibleys order was mostly begonias. Last year I majored on streptocarpus. They don't really like the minimum temperatures the conservatory hits during the winter, but survive if kept dry. I managed to kill one of them early on. I don't know how, having been careful with the watering, but it never rooted out of its little mesh bag and dwindled away. The others survived, and I potted them into slightly larger pots a couple of weeks ago. They arrive as plugs, and Dibleys are strict that they must not be overpotted in their first year. I had a tradescantia as well, which made lots of nice trailing growth then went mouldy and died in the winter, but I have read up on them since then and know that I should have kept it very dry, and that it would have been easy to propagate from cuttings so I could have brought one inside as an insurance. Buoyed up by my new theoretical expertise I have ordered a replacement, and a couple more streptocarpus, but mainly begonias.
I think foliage begonias must be more popular in the US than here. Dibleys website isn't overly generous in the information it gives on overwintering begonias, seeming to assume they will be houseplants, but digging around on the web produced a couple of helpful US based sites that suggested they would survive at temperatures not much above freezing, as long as they were kept dry. They might defoliate completely, but would bounce back with the warmer weather. I fancy them for the back of the conservatory, and maybe for my new display by the front door, neither of which get sun for the full day. The front garden might be too windy for them, but I can experiment, provided I can get them past the vulnerable plug stage. I potted them into small pots, watered them moderately, and stood them on a shelf out of direct sunlight in the greenhouse. Now it's fingers crossed that they decide to start growing, rather than finding the whole trip from Ruthin simply too exhausting.
A bigger box arrived mid morning, which was my Border Alpines delivery. I used them last year, and was very pleased with the quality of their plants and the speed with which they arrived. Today's parcel was theoretically tracked, but all I could tell in practice from the delivery company website was that my plants had been to Exeter after leaving Newton Abbot, then Tamworth, then Chelmsford, then on to another van, delivery originally scheduled for Tuesday but rescheduled for before close of business on Wednesday, whatever time that is. They hadn't taken any real harm from their extra day in a box, and are straightening themselves out now that I've unpacked them, stood them upright and given them a drink. There are some more drought tolerant ground covering things for the gravel around the railway, plus assorted oddments, a stray Trollius to replace one of a group of three (not from Border Alpines) that failed to reappear after the winter, an auricula because I liked the sound of it and had a couple of spare auricula pots, and an autumn flowering gentian for the terrace (or patio) which I can't do anything with until I've bought some ericaceous compost.
It is going to take me a while to plant everything, in addition to which I've got quite a few home raised plants ready to go out, so common sense suggests I curb my acquisitive instincts and hold off on any more plant orders for a while.
Addendum There was a most peculiar headline on the Daily Telegraph website, Middle class urban beekeepers blamed for town centre swarms. The rest of the article was more sensible, suggesting that with the rise in popularity of beekeeping, inexperienced beekeepers in towns were losing swarms which were making a nuisance of themselves. That's fair enough, but I couldn't work out why the Telegraph's headline writer wanted to drag social class into it. Nothing in the body of the article had any bearing on the beekeepers' class, merely the suggestion that they hadn't learned some of the basics of beekeeping. Though even if they had, adding space to your colonies in spring is by no means guaranteed to prevent swarming.
I suppose beekeeping is middle class in as far as it costs some money to do it, but so do most hobbies. The Telegraph might as well preface articles about cyclists, model makers or home weavers with the adjective middle class. I'm not sure they do, but type middle class beekeepers into the search box on the Telegraph website and you get quite a few headlines. I thought about the beekeepers I've known and it came to a pretty broad swathe of society, including several teachers, a dentist, a doctor, a vicar, a Colonel, a former Major turned rare book dealer, an oil industry engineer, someone who used to be in the merchant navy, a hairdresser, a plumber, a pest controller, a former paramedic turned masseur, women whose first priorities were their families rather than their careers, an artisan biscuit maker, a key cutter and engraver, a farmer and a retired factory worker. And lots of people whose occupations and educational backgrounds I have never discovered, because we are happy to talk about our shared hobby without trying to discover whether the other is middle class.
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