winter preparations

I went on stacking the heated tunnel today.  In went Olearia, Osmanthus, and Oxydendron.  Selected Prunus and Salix, Sorbaria and Tamarix, Pachysandra and Liriope followed.

The Olearia are daisy bushes, shrubby members of the vast family of Compositeae.  They are jolly plants, tolerant of sea winds, though some are only so-so hardy.  Olearia nummulifolia is one of the hardier, slow growing, with tiny fleshy round green leaves, almost like a succulent.  The name means 'leaves like coins'.  Folia is clearly something to do with leaves (foliage) and nummarius is the Latin for coin, hence numismatics, the study or collection of currency.  There, you could have worked that out.  Olearia x haastii is another reasonably hardy one, making a medium sized shrub with small oval leaves in a fetching shade of greenish grey.  It is not such a slow grower as the first, but responds well to hard renewal pruning if it is exceeding its allotted space, or getting straggly.  Olearia macrodonta has large, toothed leaves reminiscent of a grey holly, but less shiny.  It is definitely less hardy than the first two, and last winter mine was cut almost to the ground.  They are happy on light soil in full sun.

The Osmanthus section started with O. x burkwoodii, which has moderately small, dark green leaves and sweetly scented white flowers in late spring, and progressed to one of its parents, O. delavayi, which has smaller leaves and is a rather desperately slow grower in its early years, but makes a more elegant plant.  Later came several forms of O. heterophyllus.  These have prickly leaves that could be superficially mistaken for holly, and there are several variegated forms, quite showy if you like that sort of thing.  Look carefully at an Osmanthus and you will see that the leaves are held in opposite pairs, unlike holly whose leaves alternate up the stem.  Osmanthus heterophyllus does not develop such good architecture as a mature holly, and I would stick with the latter.

The only willow that gets the protection of the heated tunnel is Salix fargesii.  This has stout mahogony twigs with, at this time of the year, large leaf buds in a beautiful shade of lipstick red.  It makes a largish shrub, and I have never found the space for it, but I should love to grow it.

During one of my stints on the till I discovered a bird food catalogue.  The covering letter to one of the co-owners addressed her as 'Birdcare Buyer'.  I suppose that she is the Birdcare Buyer, in much the same way as she is Chief Financial Officer, Head of Human Resources, Chief Media Buyer, Catering Manager, and the Fire Officer.  She really is the Fire Officer.  The certificate is hanging up in the office.  The catalogue cover said that it was for 'Birdcare Power Brands', and the covering letter was so OTT that I copied it out specially for use in the blog.  It read as follows:

At long last...it's finally getting colder!  Now's the perfect time to tempt your customers with some exciting ideas from the world's finest birdcare collection.

Available now, [product name] is one of this year's most eagerly awaited product innovations.  Reflecting the new trend in premium feeding, it's a brilliant new twist on this popular product category and a guaranteed attention-grabber in store.

One of this year's most eagerly awaited product innovations?  Really?  Forget the new i-phone, the latest Wii, the promising new cancer drug and the solution to the Eurozone crisis.  What people have been waiting for is a new moist, high calorie bird food for robins.  What I want to know is, do the people that write this stuff actually believe their own hyperbole, in which case they need help, or are their tongues firmly in their cheeks?  If the latter, do they believe that their customers (my employer) are idiots?  There are times when I am so, so glad I don't work in marketing.