We went for a walk after lunch, once the hailstorm had passed, to see the bluebells. We can see two ancient woods from the sitting room windows, and a footpath lets you cut down between them, though there isn't public access into either of them. Bluebells are an ancient woodland indicator in Essex (though not in all parts of the UK), and the woodland floor to either side of the path was thick with them. In bright light they shine a vivid, luminous blue, while when the sun goes in they go dull, grey and half invisible. We were lucky and as we got to that part of the walk the sun shone through, and the ground around us gleamed back at it. The individual flowers of the native bluebell are narrow funnels, which hang down along one side of the stalk, whereas the Spanish bluebell is larger and coarser in all its parts, each flower is wider and more flared at the mouth, and they are carried all around the stalk.
The verges were thick with cow parsley, and a little white flowered thing I have known since childhood without ever learning its name. It used to stud the hedges on the walk home from school at this time of year, back in the 1960s when infants were allowed to walk themselves a mile home from school. At Cockaynes Wood, where what was until recently a working gravel pit has just been turned over to the Essex Wildlife Trust, we saw a lapwing. The bluebells in Cockaynes seemed to be going over compared to those in Captains Wood and Fratinghall Wood, some already setting seed or partly obscured by the emerging bracken, though it may partly have been an optical effect because at that point the sun had gone in. The Systems Administrator was slightly disappointed, having wanted to show them to me after tracking them as they came out, but I was quite happy, having already seen a generous display further back.
Many of the fallen trees still lie along the south-west, north-east axis, relics of the 1987 hurricane. Some have successfully thrown up strong new trunks from the sides of their fallen original boles, the part of the root plate still in the soil being enough to support life, while the fallen trunk rooted where it touched. Professional forestry managers will now admit that they were too quick to clean up the mess after 1987. Wind-thrown broadleaf trees have a considerable ability to regenerate.
Skylarks were singing above the cornfields. They seem to hold their own in this corner of Essex. Whether the farmers clear patches for them to nest in the middle of the crop, which is a good place, relatively secluded from predators, or whether they manage in the field margins and headlands, I don't know. We saw several hanging above the fields, and a couple dropped down into the middle of a field of some sort of grain. We agreed that it was wonderful to see the larks, and that what we needed was an idiot's guide to the farmed countryside, since we couldn't tell wheat from barley, and don't know whether the stuff that looks like rye grass is a recently sown grain crop that just hasn't grown much yet, or whether it really is rye grass, and if so why. It is a rather unbalanced state of knowledge to go for a walk, and be able to identify quite a few of the birds, flowers and trees, and recognise an old pollarded oak and understand why it looks like that now, without being able to identify the major economic crops growing on either side of you.
Outside Arlesford we turned a corner, and a view to the river Colne suddenly opened up. It took me a couple of minutes to get my bearings, then the unfamiliar sights fell into place and became a landscape that I knew, with the barrier across the river at Wivenhoe, the quarry dock at Rowhedge, and the bulge of the Fingringhoe reserve. The landscape around here is a patchwork of old quarry workings, with abrupt changes in level, and the grassed over bottoms of previous gravel pits providing thin grazing for horse paddocks. The horses, wearing rugs in this weather, must all get supplementary feed, so the grazing is only to amuse them. They are the lucky horses in this recession, the ones whose owners can still afford to keep them.
We met no other walkers until the home stretch, when we passed a cheerful spaniel and an old codger going in the opposite direction. The SA and the codger exchanged courtesies about the weather, and the spaniel looked as if it would have liked to jump up at me, but its owner told it sternly that if it did he would bop it with his stick, and it desisted. It was a nice walk, and I said that we should go again. The SA often walks, and knows the paths around here far better than I do. I have to be prised out of the garden, but I like it once I get going.
Showing posts with label dog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dog. Show all posts
Tuesday, 15 May 2012
Monday, 26 March 2012
day three in the plant centre
Today passed in part in an air of barely suppressed chaos. One of my colleagues had booked a holiday, arranged with another colleague to swap working days to cover, and then changed her holiday dates. The person she swapped with didn't realise that the dates had altered, so wasn't expecting to come in today. The manager, detecting at the eleventh hour that we were about to be down to two people in the plant centre today, arranged for the woman who normally works on the other side but can operate the till to come in for an extra day as cover. The owner decided to spend most of the day working in the shop so that she could run the tea room, and co-opted her twelve year old daughter to help with the teas. In theory we had enough people for a Monday.
In theory we had. But then the manager decided to leave the third staff member over on the other side, where she had more than enough jobs to be getting on with, and working with the owner is not as slick as when it is another regular member of staff. I expect that's largely down to lack of practice, but I think it's also a difference in mindset. It's her business and she employs us, so isn't used to the idea that if she wants to go to the office for ten or even five minutes at a point where she is minding the tills, she needs to tell us that she's going and then maybe wait until we've finished talking to a customer and can come and take over from her. Several times today I went out of the shop leaving her there, and returned to find nobody from the home team except for the twelve year old, and a customer waiting at the till. And the staff are accustomed taking it in turns to eat lunch, so that there will always be a minimum of two people on duty, one to operate the till and the other to help customers and answer the phone. That's a bore for the person who goes last and ends up sitting down to their lunch at quarter to two, but it's necessary to keep things ticking over smoothly. The owner, seeing a lull in trade, announced when the manager said he would go for his lunch that she would go for her's as well. The lull didn't last.
Still, I'm pleased to see her out there. Management by walking about is a very good way for anybody in charge to find out what is going on in a business, and it will be instructive for the owner to see how busy we get on the ground at this time of year, and how it is that phone calls get missed or plants not put out for sale the moment they are ready.
The dog added to the air of faint disorder by persistently coming into the shop, and walking around the kitchen and under the tables in the tea area, a would-be snapper up of unconsidered trifles. The owner exclaimed each time that the dog was supposed to be in the house, and removed her, and the dog escaped from the house every time and was back in the tea room. The daughter protested that the dog was not doing any harm and should stay. The manager and I said that the environmental health inspector would not like it, if they dropped by and found a dog in the kitchen. I heard the owner going through our operating procedures with the catering student yesterday, and whatever risk assessment form they were filling in said that they wore aprons. It did not say that we had a dog in the kitchen. One hopeful couple asked me if I could make them some tea, at a point where the owner was not there, but I had to tell them that I had not passed my food hygiene exam and had got compost on my shirt, and that while I ate my lunch in this state every day and hadn't died yet, I didn't think it would be acceptable for professional catering purposes.
The telephones have become practically inaudible at the top end of the plant centre, unless it was just my handset. Incoming calls were very faint, and kept breaking up. That's difficult at the best of times, but particularly so when you are trying to discover the name of the person calling, and the name of the plant they are looking for, as you can't fill in proper names from the context like you can with more general chit-chat. Two of the three doors to the shop aren't working properly either, and the person from the door company the manager spoke to last week while the boss was in Cornwall was spectacularly rude and unhelpful on the phone. As I said, it was a day of barely suppressed chaos.
One woman came into the shop with a pained air and said that there was nobody out there to help her at all, which was true, as I was on the till and the manager was at his desk telephoning orders for plants through to suppliers. I offered to help, and she wanted some bare root quick thorn dug up. I bagged up a bundle of ten hawthorn whips for her, and she and her husband began to quiz me about how large they would grow. They were happy to hear that they would get to eight feet as required, and asked how quickly they would get there. They were not happy with my reply, as it turned out they wanted them to get to that height this summer. I explained that almost nothing newly planted would be likely to make that much growth in its first few months, and that we did have some large specimen evergreens suitable for screening, but that they would be much more expensive. She said could I leave the hawthorn in its bag for now, as she'd probably have it anyway, and otherwise she'd let me know, but could she see the other plants as well, so I showed them some Italian grown Photinia x fraseri 'Red Robin' and pointed them in the direction of the bamboos. Later in the day I thought to go and check that she had taken the hawthorn, and there it still was, sitting in its bag. I heeled it in again. When you next read an article in the Telegraph or the Times by some journalist grumbling about how awful, rude, ignorant, useless and unhelpful shop assistants are nowadays, remember that they have to deal with some pretty stupid and godawful customers sometimes.
I have been admiring the emerging new leaves on a larch that is reserved for somebody behind the shop. At first they looked like tiny green pegs, on close examination like minute stubby bright green shaving brushes. Today they were visibly longer than at the start of the weekend, morphing from stubs into needles. They are extraordinarily pretty.
Now I have a whole six days to spend on our garden, with almost nothing booked in my diary. Admittedly I have some domestic errands to run, some of which won't wait, but the weather forecast is favourable for outside work and I should get lots done. I cross my fingers mentally when I say that, since the last time I had a run of intensive gardening planned I managed to ram a rose thorn into my knuckle at the end of day one, and spent the rest of the week with a partially useable and very painful hand the size of a potato, feeling totally zonked from the horsepill sized antibiotics.
In theory we had. But then the manager decided to leave the third staff member over on the other side, where she had more than enough jobs to be getting on with, and working with the owner is not as slick as when it is another regular member of staff. I expect that's largely down to lack of practice, but I think it's also a difference in mindset. It's her business and she employs us, so isn't used to the idea that if she wants to go to the office for ten or even five minutes at a point where she is minding the tills, she needs to tell us that she's going and then maybe wait until we've finished talking to a customer and can come and take over from her. Several times today I went out of the shop leaving her there, and returned to find nobody from the home team except for the twelve year old, and a customer waiting at the till. And the staff are accustomed taking it in turns to eat lunch, so that there will always be a minimum of two people on duty, one to operate the till and the other to help customers and answer the phone. That's a bore for the person who goes last and ends up sitting down to their lunch at quarter to two, but it's necessary to keep things ticking over smoothly. The owner, seeing a lull in trade, announced when the manager said he would go for his lunch that she would go for her's as well. The lull didn't last.
Still, I'm pleased to see her out there. Management by walking about is a very good way for anybody in charge to find out what is going on in a business, and it will be instructive for the owner to see how busy we get on the ground at this time of year, and how it is that phone calls get missed or plants not put out for sale the moment they are ready.
The dog added to the air of faint disorder by persistently coming into the shop, and walking around the kitchen and under the tables in the tea area, a would-be snapper up of unconsidered trifles. The owner exclaimed each time that the dog was supposed to be in the house, and removed her, and the dog escaped from the house every time and was back in the tea room. The daughter protested that the dog was not doing any harm and should stay. The manager and I said that the environmental health inspector would not like it, if they dropped by and found a dog in the kitchen. I heard the owner going through our operating procedures with the catering student yesterday, and whatever risk assessment form they were filling in said that they wore aprons. It did not say that we had a dog in the kitchen. One hopeful couple asked me if I could make them some tea, at a point where the owner was not there, but I had to tell them that I had not passed my food hygiene exam and had got compost on my shirt, and that while I ate my lunch in this state every day and hadn't died yet, I didn't think it would be acceptable for professional catering purposes.
The telephones have become practically inaudible at the top end of the plant centre, unless it was just my handset. Incoming calls were very faint, and kept breaking up. That's difficult at the best of times, but particularly so when you are trying to discover the name of the person calling, and the name of the plant they are looking for, as you can't fill in proper names from the context like you can with more general chit-chat. Two of the three doors to the shop aren't working properly either, and the person from the door company the manager spoke to last week while the boss was in Cornwall was spectacularly rude and unhelpful on the phone. As I said, it was a day of barely suppressed chaos.
One woman came into the shop with a pained air and said that there was nobody out there to help her at all, which was true, as I was on the till and the manager was at his desk telephoning orders for plants through to suppliers. I offered to help, and she wanted some bare root quick thorn dug up. I bagged up a bundle of ten hawthorn whips for her, and she and her husband began to quiz me about how large they would grow. They were happy to hear that they would get to eight feet as required, and asked how quickly they would get there. They were not happy with my reply, as it turned out they wanted them to get to that height this summer. I explained that almost nothing newly planted would be likely to make that much growth in its first few months, and that we did have some large specimen evergreens suitable for screening, but that they would be much more expensive. She said could I leave the hawthorn in its bag for now, as she'd probably have it anyway, and otherwise she'd let me know, but could she see the other plants as well, so I showed them some Italian grown Photinia x fraseri 'Red Robin' and pointed them in the direction of the bamboos. Later in the day I thought to go and check that she had taken the hawthorn, and there it still was, sitting in its bag. I heeled it in again. When you next read an article in the Telegraph or the Times by some journalist grumbling about how awful, rude, ignorant, useless and unhelpful shop assistants are nowadays, remember that they have to deal with some pretty stupid and godawful customers sometimes.
I have been admiring the emerging new leaves on a larch that is reserved for somebody behind the shop. At first they looked like tiny green pegs, on close examination like minute stubby bright green shaving brushes. Today they were visibly longer than at the start of the weekend, morphing from stubs into needles. They are extraordinarily pretty.
Now I have a whole six days to spend on our garden, with almost nothing booked in my diary. Admittedly I have some domestic errands to run, some of which won't wait, but the weather forecast is favourable for outside work and I should get lots done. I cross my fingers mentally when I say that, since the last time I had a run of intensive gardening planned I managed to ram a rose thorn into my knuckle at the end of day one, and spent the rest of the week with a partially useable and very painful hand the size of a potato, feeling totally zonked from the horsepill sized antibiotics.
Monday, 21 November 2011
another quiet day
The dog had an entertaining start to the day. She was playing the rat game, rummaging around the office whimpering as if she had detected some rodent intruder, but each time the gardener lifted up the clutter at the place where she was looking nothing emerged, or scuttled away, and the dog went to whine somewhere else. I thought she was spoofing the boss, and he agreed.
My start to the day was less entertaining. I found some gentians that were going mouldy, which I deadheaded and cut back, as something useful to do while I was waiting for the manager to finish checking the emails and come and tell me what I should be doing. He marched up after a while and asked who had put the shrubs into the tunnel where the magnolias used to be. This was one of the things on his weekend list of things to do, and I had done it, so I said so. He said that they were going the wrong way, as he had wanted the alphabet going downhill away from the central aisle and not uphill towards it, and would I like to switch them all round. Thank you very much. It didn't say that in his instructions, and there is no logical reason why the alphabet should go one way or the other, given that in different parts of the nursery it goes both ways. I worked jolly hard over the weekend, labelling and moving a huge number of plants with a hand swollen to the size of a small potato that hurt every time I knocked the back of it on anything, and taking horsepill antibiotics that made me feel like crap. I said so, emphatically.
Afterwards I felt vaguely remorseful, but only vaguely. He is the manager. He must be paid a lot more than I am, and gets better terms and conditions, and for that he is supposed to supervise and motivate me, not start my week by moaning that instructions that only existed in his head hadn't been followed. Then I switched the pots around.
One of our regular customers came in, asking whether we could fit one of the trained espalier apple trees in her car. I suggested taking the empirical approach, and measuring the tree and the car to find out if it were theoretically possible. The tree turned out to be 48 inches wide and 67 inches tall including the pot (there's my cover blown. I have dutifully blogged all year in metric, but I think in feet and inches. Sorry. I can cook in metric but under stress can imagine 8oz better than 250g). The car turned out to be a Nissan Micra, and was 52 inches wide. A distance of 67 inches from the inside of the tailgate would put the top of the tree somewhere above the handbrake. I said that the tree would go in the car. The only slight difficulty was that the door of the Micra was several inches narrower than the width inside the boot, but the tree just slid in on the diagonal, after I'd cut off a bit of one of the supporting canes. It was protruding beyond the branch tied to it anyway, so she won't miss it. Whether and how she will ever get the tree out again at the other end is another question.
Somebody rang up asking if we had any Parrotia persica. After a little searching around I found some nice plants for a relatively modest price. It turned out that he was a tree officer, organising a memorial tree that somebody wanted to donate to a local park, and between them they had decided on a Persian ironwood. He was keen to have more exotic trees in the park, and pleased with the price because his donor was on a limited budget. I thought how unlikely, and how delightful, that in these cash strapped times a council still had a tree officer who was willing to work with members of the public, and put the time and effort into sourcing unusual trees. A colleague recently started a marketing initiative, sending out a list of rare woody plants we can currently supply to arboretums and large gardens, and I suggested the tree officer should add his name to it. I guess that you become a tree officer because you like trees, but you probably spend a lot of your working life after that dealing with ones that are suspected of becoming unsafe, or undermining foundations. Being allowed to plant new trees instead of delivering the fatal verdict on existing ones must make a nice change.
The electricians arrived to instal new lights in the central portion of the shop, which meant moving various tables of breakables so that they could get the scaffolding in. New lights were sorely needed. The old ones consisted of three gigantic bulbs in metal casings that always filled up with flies in summer, only intermittently all came on at the same time, and cast the same amount of depressing and insufficient light as energy saving lightbulbs do in the home. Putting up the new lights caused us little inconvenience, apart from the scaffolding and the noise of cordless drills and screwdrivers (marvellous inventions), but unfortunately by the time they were ready to connect the new lights to the mains and disconnect the old ones, which entailed switching off the lighting circuit for obvious reasons, it was already mid afternoon. The shop with no lights at all was extremely dark, and I think the electricians struggled to see what they were doing wiring up the new ones. I couldn't really see the till either, but by then there were very few customers. The shop illuminated by the new lights looked much more welcoming, and very, very bright.
The day's takings were pitifully small, though there will be some invoices to come for various deliveries. Maybe it is the economic apocalypse.
My start to the day was less entertaining. I found some gentians that were going mouldy, which I deadheaded and cut back, as something useful to do while I was waiting for the manager to finish checking the emails and come and tell me what I should be doing. He marched up after a while and asked who had put the shrubs into the tunnel where the magnolias used to be. This was one of the things on his weekend list of things to do, and I had done it, so I said so. He said that they were going the wrong way, as he had wanted the alphabet going downhill away from the central aisle and not uphill towards it, and would I like to switch them all round. Thank you very much. It didn't say that in his instructions, and there is no logical reason why the alphabet should go one way or the other, given that in different parts of the nursery it goes both ways. I worked jolly hard over the weekend, labelling and moving a huge number of plants with a hand swollen to the size of a small potato that hurt every time I knocked the back of it on anything, and taking horsepill antibiotics that made me feel like crap. I said so, emphatically.
Afterwards I felt vaguely remorseful, but only vaguely. He is the manager. He must be paid a lot more than I am, and gets better terms and conditions, and for that he is supposed to supervise and motivate me, not start my week by moaning that instructions that only existed in his head hadn't been followed. Then I switched the pots around.
One of our regular customers came in, asking whether we could fit one of the trained espalier apple trees in her car. I suggested taking the empirical approach, and measuring the tree and the car to find out if it were theoretically possible. The tree turned out to be 48 inches wide and 67 inches tall including the pot (there's my cover blown. I have dutifully blogged all year in metric, but I think in feet and inches. Sorry. I can cook in metric but under stress can imagine 8oz better than 250g). The car turned out to be a Nissan Micra, and was 52 inches wide. A distance of 67 inches from the inside of the tailgate would put the top of the tree somewhere above the handbrake. I said that the tree would go in the car. The only slight difficulty was that the door of the Micra was several inches narrower than the width inside the boot, but the tree just slid in on the diagonal, after I'd cut off a bit of one of the supporting canes. It was protruding beyond the branch tied to it anyway, so she won't miss it. Whether and how she will ever get the tree out again at the other end is another question.
Somebody rang up asking if we had any Parrotia persica. After a little searching around I found some nice plants for a relatively modest price. It turned out that he was a tree officer, organising a memorial tree that somebody wanted to donate to a local park, and between them they had decided on a Persian ironwood. He was keen to have more exotic trees in the park, and pleased with the price because his donor was on a limited budget. I thought how unlikely, and how delightful, that in these cash strapped times a council still had a tree officer who was willing to work with members of the public, and put the time and effort into sourcing unusual trees. A colleague recently started a marketing initiative, sending out a list of rare woody plants we can currently supply to arboretums and large gardens, and I suggested the tree officer should add his name to it. I guess that you become a tree officer because you like trees, but you probably spend a lot of your working life after that dealing with ones that are suspected of becoming unsafe, or undermining foundations. Being allowed to plant new trees instead of delivering the fatal verdict on existing ones must make a nice change.
The electricians arrived to instal new lights in the central portion of the shop, which meant moving various tables of breakables so that they could get the scaffolding in. New lights were sorely needed. The old ones consisted of three gigantic bulbs in metal casings that always filled up with flies in summer, only intermittently all came on at the same time, and cast the same amount of depressing and insufficient light as energy saving lightbulbs do in the home. Putting up the new lights caused us little inconvenience, apart from the scaffolding and the noise of cordless drills and screwdrivers (marvellous inventions), but unfortunately by the time they were ready to connect the new lights to the mains and disconnect the old ones, which entailed switching off the lighting circuit for obvious reasons, it was already mid afternoon. The shop with no lights at all was extremely dark, and I think the electricians struggled to see what they were doing wiring up the new ones. I couldn't really see the till either, but by then there were very few customers. The shop illuminated by the new lights looked much more welcoming, and very, very bright.
The day's takings were pitifully small, though there will be some invoices to come for various deliveries. Maybe it is the economic apocalypse.
Monday, 15 August 2011
end of an epic
Some of the predictions came true. Watering my trousers probably doesn't count, as I always end up watering them, and I could have done it on purpose. Three separate sets of would-be garden visitors wanted free entry because they were RHS members, and on being told that sadly the concession did not apply on Sundays one said crossly (and incorrectly) that it didn't say so in the handbook. Somebody wanted to buy a terracotta trough that had lost its price, and was the only one of that design. With the customer's agreement a colleague and I invented a price, based on another planter of similar size. We went for three quid under the marked price, on the basis that the one with no label was older stock, and the punter was content. We didn't actually run completely out of pound coins, but were low on them, and towards close of play I had to make up six pounds in change mostly from 50p coins, after having to juggle five pound notes between tills earlier in the day.
The dog absconded, or at least we heard the owners' son shouting her name for quite a long time in the garden, before seeing him marching back towards the house with the dog firmly clasped under one arm. After we had all gone home she disgraced herself by rolling in some fox shit. The owner couldn't face bathing her last night, and the dog spend the night locked in a cage in the kitchen. This morning their son was prevailed on to give her a bath, and the owner said that all her bedding would have to go through the washing machine. It may be one of the things that distinguishes a true countrywoman from a townie, that the former considers it entirely normal to put fox crap encrusted dog blankets through the same washing machine she uses for the family's laundry. The latter probably doesn't.
The manager returned from his holiday, which was apparently very nice. It was a pity that after half an hour of watering we lost pressure, and that the reason turned out to be that the tank was empty. I fear this confirmed his view that we are a rather hopeless lot requiring constant supervision. I have no idea why the tank failed to fill overnight, as it had been working perfectly well all the time he was away. Once he restarted the pump that takes water from the pond in the garden, and connected the top up hose from the outside tap, the tank began to fill remarkably quickly, and we were soon watering again, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Psychological research does show that the beneficial effects of a holiday only last for a week or two. I fear the manager may fall into the one week category.
The hose that was leaking and that the gardener mended before sprang another leak, and now has two jubilee clips holding the bits together. My colleague worked out why it kept perforating (or at least formulated a good working hypothesis) which was that given something on the polytunnel door had come loose or undone, exposing a sharp piece of metal on the underside of the door, the hose could be getting caught under the door and ripped while watering in the tunnel.
Our misdemeanours in the plant centre were dwarfed by that of the younger gardener, who unfortunately let the tractor run out of oil. An engineer arrived in a van, and spent the afternoon working on it, and I fear that the bill for repairs is going to be a hefty one. The gardener works very hard and is generally good at his job, and that was an unlucky way to get caught out. Deprived of their tractor the gardeners did at least have the digger to play with, and the list of plants to be removed grew beyond just the infected stumps, as the boss began to consider which shrubs and bits of hedge might not be garden worthy. There is something rather intoxicating about having a digger on the premises. You can make so many changes so quickly.
The dog absconded, or at least we heard the owners' son shouting her name for quite a long time in the garden, before seeing him marching back towards the house with the dog firmly clasped under one arm. After we had all gone home she disgraced herself by rolling in some fox shit. The owner couldn't face bathing her last night, and the dog spend the night locked in a cage in the kitchen. This morning their son was prevailed on to give her a bath, and the owner said that all her bedding would have to go through the washing machine. It may be one of the things that distinguishes a true countrywoman from a townie, that the former considers it entirely normal to put fox crap encrusted dog blankets through the same washing machine she uses for the family's laundry. The latter probably doesn't.
The manager returned from his holiday, which was apparently very nice. It was a pity that after half an hour of watering we lost pressure, and that the reason turned out to be that the tank was empty. I fear this confirmed his view that we are a rather hopeless lot requiring constant supervision. I have no idea why the tank failed to fill overnight, as it had been working perfectly well all the time he was away. Once he restarted the pump that takes water from the pond in the garden, and connected the top up hose from the outside tap, the tank began to fill remarkably quickly, and we were soon watering again, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Psychological research does show that the beneficial effects of a holiday only last for a week or two. I fear the manager may fall into the one week category.
The hose that was leaking and that the gardener mended before sprang another leak, and now has two jubilee clips holding the bits together. My colleague worked out why it kept perforating (or at least formulated a good working hypothesis) which was that given something on the polytunnel door had come loose or undone, exposing a sharp piece of metal on the underside of the door, the hose could be getting caught under the door and ripped while watering in the tunnel.
Our misdemeanours in the plant centre were dwarfed by that of the younger gardener, who unfortunately let the tractor run out of oil. An engineer arrived in a van, and spent the afternoon working on it, and I fear that the bill for repairs is going to be a hefty one. The gardener works very hard and is generally good at his job, and that was an unlucky way to get caught out. Deprived of their tractor the gardeners did at least have the digger to play with, and the list of plants to be removed grew beyond just the infected stumps, as the boss began to consider which shrubs and bits of hedge might not be garden worthy. There is something rather intoxicating about having a digger on the premises. You can make so many changes so quickly.
Monday, 20 June 2011
the thorn beneath the rose
When I came downstairs this morning I discovered that one of the cats had been sick in the hall, and that the chicken's water was running out. I cleared up the hall floor and refilled the galvanised drinker, but it was a bit of a scramble getting off to work, what with making my packed lunch, filling up the bird table and collecting the eggs (one egg, very small. The mad old bat ancient lady chicken has decided that anything more than a pullet sized egg is too much for her nowadays, which is fair enough).
It was an absolutely beautiful morning, still and sunny. The compost in most pots was still damp from the rain, but I ran the overhead irrigation in the shade tunnel for a few minutes, as the hydrangeas and rhododendrons are so leafy and dry out quickly. The sun caught the fine spray of water and made the tunnel look like a scene from a tropical forest, and I thought how much more pleasant it was to be standing in a Victorian walled garden looking at a sunlit mist of water and listening to birdsong on a Monday morning than to be sitting in an office looking at a screen and worrying about the latest unfolding of the Greek debt tragedy.
The dog has been fitted with a little tinkly bell on her collar, in the latest battle against her urge to explore and abscond. As the gardener and I were eating our lunch in the staffroom we heard a tiny metallic sound. I opened the door and in came the dog, who knows that there is food in the tennis hut, besides being a sociable creature. I called the boss on the radio to say that we had got the dog, and presently the woman who works in the office came to collect her. (Staffroom makes it sound rather grand. We call it the tennis hut because it was used to store tennis gear in the days when there was a tennis court on what is now the car park, but it was originally built as a cart shed. You can tell this from the wide lintel over the bricked-up former door, before it was fitted with a bijou Edwardian porch. That and the fact that the brick floor appears to have been laid directly on to the earth).
I was allowed to redo a couple of display tables, and enjoyed a mini-Oudolf moment with Stipa gigantea, Perovskia and Agapanthus, shading off into white hydrangeas and hostas. I removed some ginger-brown Heuchera that were arguing with some pink flowers I think they were intended to complement, and put them around some terracotta balls with star shaped holes pierced in them, where they looked much more harmonious. Somebody actually bought one, though as she bought several other Heuchera as well this may have down to prior intention, and not my finely honed merchandising abilities.
After lunch I volunteered to stake and tie in the climbing roses, as I knew that this was on the manager's list of things to do. He seemed incredulous, and pathetically grateful, that anybody had actually offered to do this job without having to be cajoled into it. Staking roses isn't so bad. We use 3 foot canes (garden canes are still not metric. Don't know why) and any whippy bits of growth that are long enough to be tied to the cane are attached with green tape using a tie-gun. I don't begin to understand how a tie-gun works, and they are temperamental bits of kit that don't always work anyway. You squeeze a handle, and two arms come together and jaws on one arm grab the end of the green tape that is fed down the other arm from a spool. You release the handle and the jaws open, pulling out a length of tape. You press the tape against whatever you are trying to tie up, in this case one or more rose stems to a cane. You squeeze the handle again and the jaws close, staple the tape into a loop around the stems, and cut it. Periodically you run out of tape, or you run out of staples, or the tape jams, or breaks, or piles up in multiple folds in the stapler and fails to cut through. A customer who was once watching me coaxing a tie-gun into working said that he would have thrown it across the room several minutes previously, and that I must have the patience of a saint. I don't, though there are times when it would be useful.
I suppose my colleagues don't like tying in the roses because of the tie-gun, and because the roses are prickly, but I only got slightly scratched. One branch pricked me on the face, a tiny scratch that at home I would have ignored, but it bled for ages and I didn't think I could go on working in the plant centre with smears of blood on my cheek, so had to go and staunch the flow in private with a paper towel until it suddenly stopped. Another rose caught me in the thumb as I was setting the pot down, quite deep. That hurt for a minute and I went and found a plaster for it, before I could get compost in the cut. But as ways of amassing brownie points go, tying in roses isn't too bad, and it probably made up for the fact that I had completely failed to grasp what I was supposed to be doing with the new guide to the gardens, which I should have finished ages ago.
It was an absolutely beautiful morning, still and sunny. The compost in most pots was still damp from the rain, but I ran the overhead irrigation in the shade tunnel for a few minutes, as the hydrangeas and rhododendrons are so leafy and dry out quickly. The sun caught the fine spray of water and made the tunnel look like a scene from a tropical forest, and I thought how much more pleasant it was to be standing in a Victorian walled garden looking at a sunlit mist of water and listening to birdsong on a Monday morning than to be sitting in an office looking at a screen and worrying about the latest unfolding of the Greek debt tragedy.
The dog has been fitted with a little tinkly bell on her collar, in the latest battle against her urge to explore and abscond. As the gardener and I were eating our lunch in the staffroom we heard a tiny metallic sound. I opened the door and in came the dog, who knows that there is food in the tennis hut, besides being a sociable creature. I called the boss on the radio to say that we had got the dog, and presently the woman who works in the office came to collect her. (Staffroom makes it sound rather grand. We call it the tennis hut because it was used to store tennis gear in the days when there was a tennis court on what is now the car park, but it was originally built as a cart shed. You can tell this from the wide lintel over the bricked-up former door, before it was fitted with a bijou Edwardian porch. That and the fact that the brick floor appears to have been laid directly on to the earth).
I was allowed to redo a couple of display tables, and enjoyed a mini-Oudolf moment with Stipa gigantea, Perovskia and Agapanthus, shading off into white hydrangeas and hostas. I removed some ginger-brown Heuchera that were arguing with some pink flowers I think they were intended to complement, and put them around some terracotta balls with star shaped holes pierced in them, where they looked much more harmonious. Somebody actually bought one, though as she bought several other Heuchera as well this may have down to prior intention, and not my finely honed merchandising abilities.
After lunch I volunteered to stake and tie in the climbing roses, as I knew that this was on the manager's list of things to do. He seemed incredulous, and pathetically grateful, that anybody had actually offered to do this job without having to be cajoled into it. Staking roses isn't so bad. We use 3 foot canes (garden canes are still not metric. Don't know why) and any whippy bits of growth that are long enough to be tied to the cane are attached with green tape using a tie-gun. I don't begin to understand how a tie-gun works, and they are temperamental bits of kit that don't always work anyway. You squeeze a handle, and two arms come together and jaws on one arm grab the end of the green tape that is fed down the other arm from a spool. You release the handle and the jaws open, pulling out a length of tape. You press the tape against whatever you are trying to tie up, in this case one or more rose stems to a cane. You squeeze the handle again and the jaws close, staple the tape into a loop around the stems, and cut it. Periodically you run out of tape, or you run out of staples, or the tape jams, or breaks, or piles up in multiple folds in the stapler and fails to cut through. A customer who was once watching me coaxing a tie-gun into working said that he would have thrown it across the room several minutes previously, and that I must have the patience of a saint. I don't, though there are times when it would be useful.
I suppose my colleagues don't like tying in the roses because of the tie-gun, and because the roses are prickly, but I only got slightly scratched. One branch pricked me on the face, a tiny scratch that at home I would have ignored, but it bled for ages and I didn't think I could go on working in the plant centre with smears of blood on my cheek, so had to go and staunch the flow in private with a paper towel until it suddenly stopped. Another rose caught me in the thumb as I was setting the pot down, quite deep. That hurt for a minute and I went and found a plaster for it, before I could get compost in the cut. But as ways of amassing brownie points go, tying in roses isn't too bad, and it probably made up for the fact that I had completely failed to grasp what I was supposed to be doing with the new guide to the gardens, which I should have finished ages ago.
Monday, 9 May 2011
it's day three in the plant centre
Most of today's excitements were provided by the assorted pets and livestock. The dog became very eager to get at whatever was underneath the low shelf we store multipurpose compost on. While watering inside the little greenhouse at the back of the shop I heard furious growls and squeals from the dog, mixed with vexed cries from the gardener, who was at that moment trying to top the pile up with extra bags. The situation didn't seem to be resolving itself, so I went outside to help. The gardener said that there was a hedgehog under the shelf. I considered whether to jet the dog with the hose, or pick her up. I thought that coming between a terrier and her chosen prey I ran the risk of getting bitten, on the other hand the dog and I have alwas enjoyed good relations, and setting the hose on her would escalate the level of violence. I decided she would probably not bite me, seized her firmly, and carried her up to the office. She managed to rip open several bags of compost in the stramash.
Later on there was a swarm of bees in the plant centre. I recognised the sound instantly, and saw them swirling around inconveniently close to the loos, but luckily they moved on. It is a waste not to hive a swarm, but they aren't something you want hanging around for the day where there are customers about. I don't carry my bee suit with me in the car, so I couldn't have done anything about them. I don't know if the owners rang the beekeeper who has some hives in the arboretum. If the swarm didn't settle there wouldn't be a lot of point. They may not have been his anyway. My bees at home were still not showing any signs of preparing to swarm when I inspected them on Friday, before my working weekend, but I can't believe that will last.
The dog escaped from the house and returned to the fray with the hedgehog, this time managing to get under the shelf. I think the second time the manager did flush her out with a jet of cold water, and I saw her being carried by the scruff of the neck back up to the house. I don't think he is especially fond of dogs.
The peachick was sent to a new home. In the end the gamekeeper's wife escaped being lumbered with him, as somebody who came on a recent guided walk around the garden wanted a peacock. He had been looking a bit lost in the plant centre anyway, since in the past couple of weeks his mummy completely lost interest in him. He was lured into the chicken house with food last night, caught and penned, and taken away this afternoon in a large cardboard box.
We were discussing on Saturday whether, if a famous person came into the plant centre, it was polite to recognise them, or whether they should be granted the illusion of anonymity when they weren't working. This came up because the designer Tom Stuart Smith was in. I love his work, and would cheerfully have said so if I'd encountered him, but I didn't. Today it was the turn of one of the editors of Hortus. I didn't recognise the face, but the manager told me who he was. Apparently he was doing an advance recce for a group he is bringing to visit next month. He bought a few plants and some pots, and apologised for keeping me after closing time, which was considerate of him, so I told him that we were there until six so up to that point I was entirely tranquil, and said that I really liked his garden when I'd seen it in magazines. He told me that the iris orchard was looking spectacular, and it was about to feature in the Telegraph magazine and Country Living. You have to be a very odd keen gardener not to be pleased when people say they like your garden.
Back home, the robin's nest in the greenhouse is empty. The anti-cat netting was in place across the door, and there was no sign of a struggle, so unless a very efficient magpie got in through the roof vent and out again I think the young probably fledged successfully. I wish them well, but it will be a relief to be able to use the greenhouse normally again without feeling guilty.
Later on there was a swarm of bees in the plant centre. I recognised the sound instantly, and saw them swirling around inconveniently close to the loos, but luckily they moved on. It is a waste not to hive a swarm, but they aren't something you want hanging around for the day where there are customers about. I don't carry my bee suit with me in the car, so I couldn't have done anything about them. I don't know if the owners rang the beekeeper who has some hives in the arboretum. If the swarm didn't settle there wouldn't be a lot of point. They may not have been his anyway. My bees at home were still not showing any signs of preparing to swarm when I inspected them on Friday, before my working weekend, but I can't believe that will last.
The dog escaped from the house and returned to the fray with the hedgehog, this time managing to get under the shelf. I think the second time the manager did flush her out with a jet of cold water, and I saw her being carried by the scruff of the neck back up to the house. I don't think he is especially fond of dogs.
The peachick was sent to a new home. In the end the gamekeeper's wife escaped being lumbered with him, as somebody who came on a recent guided walk around the garden wanted a peacock. He had been looking a bit lost in the plant centre anyway, since in the past couple of weeks his mummy completely lost interest in him. He was lured into the chicken house with food last night, caught and penned, and taken away this afternoon in a large cardboard box.
We were discussing on Saturday whether, if a famous person came into the plant centre, it was polite to recognise them, or whether they should be granted the illusion of anonymity when they weren't working. This came up because the designer Tom Stuart Smith was in. I love his work, and would cheerfully have said so if I'd encountered him, but I didn't. Today it was the turn of one of the editors of Hortus. I didn't recognise the face, but the manager told me who he was. Apparently he was doing an advance recce for a group he is bringing to visit next month. He bought a few plants and some pots, and apologised for keeping me after closing time, which was considerate of him, so I told him that we were there until six so up to that point I was entirely tranquil, and said that I really liked his garden when I'd seen it in magazines. He told me that the iris orchard was looking spectacular, and it was about to feature in the Telegraph magazine and Country Living. You have to be a very odd keen gardener not to be pleased when people say they like your garden.
Back home, the robin's nest in the greenhouse is empty. The anti-cat netting was in place across the door, and there was no sign of a struggle, so unless a very efficient magpie got in through the roof vent and out again I think the young probably fledged successfully. I wish them well, but it will be a relief to be able to use the greenhouse normally again without feeling guilty.
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