tiny trees

We received a large delivery of herbaceous plants this morning at the plant centre, some in 9cm and 2L pots to be sold as they are, and some field grown bare root pieces of plant to be potted up, and sold once they are properly rooted in.  It was a case of all hands to the pumps to unload the lorry, and we began to run out of space to put the trays and boxes down.  One tray disintegrated in transit causing twenty Francoa to crash to the ground, sustaining minor damage, but as the manager was carrying that one there were no recriminations.  A couple of Agapanthus got dropped in the excitement as well, and there was a moment of minor tension when two different sorts of grasses got mixed up, but overall it went quite smoothly.

I'd expected to spend the day potting, which I was looking forward to, but no labels were ready until late on so we couldn't make a start.  Instead I found myself cleaning up pots containing tiny oak and thorn trees that arrived sometime in the past week.  Some of the Crataegus had such lush crops of liverwort growing on the surface of the compost that I'm surprised the grower wasn't embarrassed to send them out in that state, but I suppose we are paying for the rarity value, not the presentation, and there's no benefit to them in having a staff member spend time cleaning them.  We get these rare trees as very young plants, mostly 15-45cm tall, which comes as a disappointment to those customers who want to start with something at 2-3m.  They retail at close to thirty pounds, which puts them among the most expensive plants per centimetre that we sell.  Most of the cork oaks, Quercus suber, were horribly shrivelled.  It's true that they were left outside last night, but it wasn't that cold, and cork oak is reasonably hardy (the most northerly specimen I've seen growing in the UK was at Gosforth in the Lake District).  The pots felt normally moist, but the manager decided they had probably been allowed to dry out at some point during transit.  To a plant lover it is sad to see a nice little young plant ruined by poor treatment.

It is exciting when the new stock starts pouring in.  We're scheduled to get all sorts of things in the next couple of weeks, and they are harbingers of spring, like hearing the first skylark (as I did on Saturday).  It's nice to see familiar plants reappear, and there's always the possibility of something new and unknown.  Since I was last at work Prunus incisa 'Kojo-no-mai' had arrived, so I did buy one of those, as I know exactly where I am going to put it, in the middle of the long bed next to a dwarf pine, and the site is more or less ready.

The chippie was hard at work in the shop, fastening together the cabinets for the new kitchen.  Apparently some customers have expressed disquiet that we are having a cafe, even an incredibly modest one, and asked whether that means that we are going to become like everybody else.  I put it down to dislike of change (rather sad).  There is no reason why starting to sell proper pots of tea and cake should be the  precursor to halving the range of plants and diversifying into gas barbecues and novelty clocks.

Addendum  Essex does not feature on today's list of additional counties that are officially in drought.  I see that Thames Water are telling customers that there are simple steps they can take to save water, like not running the tap while cleaning their teeth, and only running full loads of laundry.  I find that sort of advice completely unhelpful, as I only ever run full machine loads of washing, and haven't run the tap while cleaning my teeth for about three decades.  It's like those headlines that promise savings of so many thousand pounds a year, and then in the article it turns out that I have to stop buying a latte every day, take my own sandwiches to work, and give up my gym membership to walk the dog instead.  The theoretical savings would indeed be immense, if only I bought latte and sandwiches and had a gym membership to start with (or indeed a dog).