another quiet day

One of the hoses at work split while in use.  The resulting spray of water was quite impressive.  The gardener was summoned to fix it, and cut out the damaged section, butting the two severed ends together around a short length of metal pipe that he presciently kept in his tool box, and fasting them tight with jubilee clips.  It won't be good as new, unfortunately, because the jubilee clips will tend to snag on corners.

The other gardener was a no-show because his car has broken down, and is still at the garage, and he lives thirty miles away in mid-Essex.  He was off on Friday as well, so that is two days of his annual holiday allowance used up to no great purpose.  Happy is the lot of people in jobs where you can elect to work from home for the day.

After doing my share of the watering I spent part of the morning calling people to let them know that plants they'd been looking for were now here.  It took some nerve to call the person who had asked for a lilac, Syringa hyacinthiflora 'Esther Staley', back in November 2009.  I wondered if it was too absurd to even pick up the phone, but the manager said that 'Esther Staley' was incredibly difficult to get hold of, and he hadn't been able to find any at all last year, so these really were the first plants we'd had in stock in the past eighteen months.  I got her answerphone and left an apologetic and rambling message.  She may have moved house by now, and the new occupants may be utterly mystified by it.  Some other people I rang had forgotten even asking for the plants, but sounded as if they wanted them.  If customers come into the plant centre to collect one thing they often end up buying other things as well, so it is worth calling.

It was still quiet, though.  The weekend was apparently quite busy, and a big order that was going to go out next month might just fall into this month instead, because nobody is available at the start of next week to drive the van, but I fear we are going to end the month shy of where we should be.

The peacock seems to have made a full recovery from his eye infection, following the boss's daily applications of antibiotic ointment.  Apparently the poor bird's head had swelled to twice its normal size at the worst, and the boss was convinced he would lose the eye.  He told me that peacocks don't merely lose their tails after the breeding season, but actively pull them out, then grow a fresh set of feathers next spring.  I have read a theory that the tail works to signal the peacock's health and strength by effectively saying to the hen 'Look what a hunky chap I am. that I can afford to lug this cumbersome tail around with me', so if it is in the way I suppose he might as well not bother with it at times of the year when he isn't trying to impress the ladies.

bittercress and peacocks

The boss announced that we must tackle the hairy bittercress in the herbaceous tunnel, before it ripened and shed its seeds everywhere.  He added generously that the manager could use one of the plant centre staff up until 10.00am.  As we were both watering until gone twenty past nine this was a slightly symbolic gesture, but I managed to spend an hour and a quarter over there before it got too busy in the plant centre.  Hairy bittercress grown in a nice, warm, irrigated tunnel displays a vigour not possessed by the starvelings that try to colonise my gravel, and make huge, plump plants fully 20cm tall.  I think we may have missed the boat slightly with the seed shedding, though.

We had to hose dollops of peacock ordure off the ramp up to the back of the shop.  My colleague believes that at this time of the year they like to look at themselves reflected in the glass of the door.  At least they don't show any interest in the parked cars:  I have heard of peacocks attacking their reflections in the panels of a well-polished motor.  Mine will be quite safe anyway, as it hasn't been washed since winter, and not for quite a long time before that.  I keep thinking that I really must wash it, but it would be a great excuse to be able to say that you would have a clean car, except that then it might be attacked by peacocks.

One of the hens made repeated forays into the shop, presumably looking for cake crumbs after yesterday's Yellow Book festivities.  Another hen, or maybe the same one, managed to get locked into the staff room.  Chickens and carpets don't mix.  The carpet is an unfortunate shade of pink, donated by a former staff member who had a mate who was refurbishing a pub, and was already pretty grubby, but it is marginally worse now.

Most of the customers were delightful, though I did get one peeved and self-righteous one who was not very happy that we hadn't rung her to warn her that the cistus she had been told would be arriving in around three weeks when she ordered it about three weeks ago was still expected in three weeks as of today.  I apologised for that and explained that ordering in plants from small suppliers wasn't as straightforward as ordering baked beans, and that unfortunately as it was a very busy time of year and the list of people waiting for plants ran to 12 pages of A4, we didn't have the resources to call each of them to keep them updated on progress obtaining their plants.  Actually, I've never tried ordering baked beans, and for all I know it is fiendishly complicated.  How do you explain politely to querulous and possibly rather dim people that the level of personal service they are expecting for their nineteen quid is wildly unrealistic?

peacocks and flowers

The peacock at work has been displaying his tail.  It is extraordinarily exotic.  Behind the big ornamental Arts Nouveau style feathers he has a shorter fan of stiff feathers, which he rattles.  The hen appears totally unmoved, and goes on eating grass, and I am reminded of the Punch cartoon of a small peahen standing in front of a male with an absolutely huge fan tail, and the caption 'What do you mean, no?'.  The young peacock that hatched last year has been raising his little tail as well, though he doesn't have anything like the full array yet.

The fancy chicken with the ultra large comb, that flops over one eye (I should have thought it would drive her mad) keeps coming into the back of the shop, now that it's getting warmer and we leave the doors open.  Fortunately most of the customers seem to think that this is quaint and charming.  The doors are automatic, but the sensor inside the shop is getting a bit weak, and sometimes it doesn't detect that you are approaching and you have to do a few steps like a square dance to trigger the doors, so leaving them open is easier in some ways.  The sensor outside the shop broke ages ago, and it was quite handy being able to stop customers from wandering in by the back door.  Those in the know are aware that to get in you have to turn a key in the door frame.

We do our own version of the peacock's tail, with arrangements of those plants that are looking especially floriferous or desirable on tables around the plant centre.  They help make the place look nice, and they are shamelessly intended to induce people to spend money on impulse purchases.  Sorry, that's what shops do.  I got to re-do some of the display tables today, which I always enjoy as it gives me a chance to play with all the prettiest plants, and makes a change from picking dead leaves off the Leycesteria.  I try to use things that could be grown together in the garden, partly to give customers some genuinely helpful ideas, and partly because I find the alternative looks so jarringly odd.  The design principles of unity and repetition help, so not too many different varieties on one table, and I aim to find things that look well together in terms of habit, and leaf size and texture, as well as colour.  Today I paired up a variegated Photinia with peachy brown and red young leaves with a Heuchera in just the same shade of russet.  I didn't actually like either plant particularly, but it was a good colour match.  Somebody will buy them.

I got home to find the chickens ranging freely.  Their chaperone, swaddled in layers of fleece and a hat, announced that they were starting to flock together much better.  Then the rooster fell in the pond.  In fairness to him, maybe he didn't know he couldn't walk on the duckweed, but he does now.  He breast-stroked across the width of the pond, shrieking horribly, and I plucked him out, but I think he is traumatised.

winter jobs

Today first thing we were forbidden to feed the peacocks anywhere in the plant centre because then they come into the shop.  This would be very fine and dandy and picturesque if it were not for the fact that they roost on the displays and crap on the floor.  Then I got on with winter jobs, cleaning dead leaves and any odd bits of hairy bittercress or liverwort out of the berberis and cornus, top dressing with compost as required, and dusting the pots with a shake of pre-emergent herbicide.  While they were out of their bed I swept dead leaves and spilt compost off the mypex fabric that covers it.  I found a couple that had lost their labels, which were put to one side until they come into leaf or flower and give us more of a clue what they are.  The next stage will be to treat the timber frames of the shrub beds with creosote substitute.  I discovered that I will not be required to help with this, which suits me fine.  The telephone rang quite often.  Sometimes we had the plant the person was looking for, sometimes we didn't.  I did my best to advise the woman whose Daphne odora had lost all its leaves in the winter (she could fleece it if it starts coming back into leaf and more severe cold weather is forecast.  Otherwise there isn't a lot she can do).  I spent some time on the till, and took details of a couple of deliveries.  I got a lot of compost on my coat.  And that was a day at work at a plant centre in January.