meeting people, talking about plants

We were back at full strength today, with three plant centre staff and the tea shop girl.  This meant that I could go outside and do some actual nursery work, and talk to customers about plants, which beats washing up tea cups any day of the week.

A couple wanted two evergreen standards to go in containers outside their conservatory, to replace a pair of standard lilacs that had done sterling service but were now begging to be allowed to go out into the ground.  We had a sensible conversation about the relative merits of box, the Japanese holly Ilex crenata which is used for cloud pruning, a small-leaved privet Ligustrum delavayanum, sweet bay, common holly, and evergreen euonymus.  They wanted to leave the pots outdoors all through the winter, and it seemed to me that box was the most reliable choice.  I've got some box balls in pots which have stood through the two recent really cold winters, and several years before that.  So many people lost bay in those two severe winters, it is scarcely dependable as a standard in the open ground, let alone in a pot where the roots can freeze.

Another customer wanted to know whether I thought Hydrangea aspera would do for a couple of years in a container, which led into a discussion of porous versus glazed terracotta and its effect on root temperature, and the winter hardiness of Albizia julibrissin.  He turned out to be a real woody plant enthusiast, who enjoyed growing them from seed, and told me how he had successfully hard-pruned and rejuvenated an ailing Cercis siliquastrum, the Judas tree, after noticing a row of them in a background shot in Monty Don's Italian Gardens series, which had received a drastic chop and were flowering away on their remaining wood.

Somebody wanted Akebia quinata, and was happy that we had it not just in the usual purple but in cream.  This is a useful, tough climber that will cope with a North wall, which is where they wanted to put it.  It produces little dangling bell-shaped flowers around April time.  Someone else wanted to know whether I thought she could grow Clematis armandii on a North Wall.  I had my doubts, and pointed out the boss's label saying the plant required a sunny position, but she basically wanted one, and rejected my alternative suggestion, which as it happens was for Akebia.

A couple from Dedham, who have just had their garden completely redone by one of the landscapers that shops with us regularly, bought seven hundred pounds worth of pots to go on their terrace.  They were delighted with the pots, which they said were exactly what they'd been looking for, and I was pretty pleased with the sale, though it owed nothing to my sales technique.  They knew they wanted pots, it wasn't as though they'd just come in to buy a packet of radish seeds and I'd persuaded them that what they really needed was three large glazed urns.

In the afternoon a large thunderstorm, with lighting, scared most of the customers away prematurely, and close to closing time a second downpour threatened to keep us all trapped in the shop.  Still, with the flowerpot sale the overall takings were quite respectable for late July.