My bulbs order from Peter Nyssen arrived today. I was doubly pleased to see it, because it contains daffodils which ought to be planted now, and because it arrived early and saved me spending the whole day hanging around for the courier. I knew it was coming sometime soon because I'd had an email from the supplier, but all the Track Your Parcel link told me was that it was In Transit. Waiting for anything that needs signing does rather limit what I can do in the garden. The meadow is out of bounds, since I'd never hear the van and if I did the driver would have pushed a Sorry You Were Out card through the letterbox before I'd legged it back to the house. On a windy day even half way down the back garden is too far away. My favourite parcel company emails on the morning with a one hour delivery slot, but most aren't that sophisticated. In Transit doesn't even make it clear which day they're coming. Could be today, could be tomorrow.
I recognised the Hermes courier, who has been on this round for a while, and thanked her for the box, adding I was pleased she had come so early so that I didn't have to wait in all day, and she said that she was happy to leave parcels in our porch, since there wasn't any passing traffic to nick them. I agreed that that was exactly the right thing to do. Always try to be nice to your delivery drivers and the postman, not just because it is a civilised human thing to do, but because it can save you tedious journeys to collect your parcel from the depot. When we were both working in London I once ended up driving to an industrial estate outside Ipswich to pick up one box of plants. I did think that was taking the piss, after I'd paid for delivery. Ipswich isn't even in the same county.
I spent a happy afternoon listening the the Kermode and Mayo film programme and potting up everything except the tulips. Daffodils start into growth early, left to their own devices, and the first week of September is none too early to plant them. I'd also ordered snakeshead fritillaries, ordinary mauve checkerboard and twenty-five white Fritillaria meleagris, to go in the bottom lawn. In the past I've sometimes planted fritillaries straight into the ground and sometimes potted them and put them out the following spring as growing plants. The last advice I read on the subject favoured starting them into growth in pots when planting into turf. Anyway, we haven't even cut the long grass yet so the bottom lawn is nowhere near ready for planting anything, and Peter Nyssen's advice was to plant fritillaries at once so that the bulbs didn't dry out. They were lovely large bulbs, especially the purple ones, and I have great hopes of them if the mice don't eat them.
I have stood all my pots in large propagating cases with lids, sticking duct tape over the holes in one lid where the sliding plastic vents had dropped out, and I am so paranoid about them that I'm considering taping the lids to the bases. I've lost the bulk of the small fritillaries and species tulips potted in the last two autumns to mice, and swore last winter that next time I would be really careful to make sure that all the pots of small bulbs were covered, and that the covers were mouse proof. As soon as we get back from holiday I'll set the electronic mouse zappers, but I think that expecting the housesitter to water the greenhouse while not watering the zappers might be too complicated. I manage, apart from the odd time when I sprinkle them by mistake and they start making buzzing noises and I have to dry them out in the laundry room, but it is my greenhouse and I take responsibility for accidentally watering any electrical equipment which ought to be kept dry.
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