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.

some heroic survivors

Many of my accounts of the effects of last winter have been of losses, so I should like to pay tribute to a couple of unexpected survivors, which are still alive despite my best efforts at neglect, and which I would not have thought were that hardy.

The first is the white form of Vitex agnus-castus, the chaste tree.  I don't know when the white flowered form came on the scene, but the species is said to have been cultivated in the British Isles since 1570.  It originates from Mediterranean regions and across to central Asia, and is generally considered to require a sunny, sheltered position (nursery code for not fully hardy).  It carries buddleia-like sprays of scented flowers at the ends of its shoots in September and October.  I'm always on the lookout for plants that will continue the flowering season on into autumn, and was charmed by the chaste tree when I saw it.  There is a large and handsome specimen in the botanical gardens at Leiden (interesting and well worth a visit), and both the blue and white flowered forms grow in the walled garden at Marks Hall (a really good modern scheme within an old walled garden, and much easier to get to than Leiden).  Comparing the blue and the white I decided in favour of the latter.  I bought a likely-looking plant at work, and put it down outside the greenhouse.  As I brought pots in for the winter the greenhouse became full to bursting, and it was very difficult to see what everything was, and I lost track of what was in and what was out.  When the snow came down before Christmas the Vitex was still outside on the concrete, and there it stayed until the spring.  I found the pathetic bundle of twigs as I started moving things about in March, and cursed myself for losing a perfectly good plant through carelessness.  The ones at work come inside for the winter, into the tunnel with the heater in it.  Then I saw that the buds were swelling.  It is making generous new growth from low down, and will be planted tomorrow, or next week.

Also left on the concrete by mistake were two 9cm pots containing young plants of Geranium 'Stephanie'.  Again, we take all hardy geraniums inside for the winter at work, and I assumed that I had lost them.  They must have been frozen solid for long periods.  However, both sprouted healthy sets of leaves, and are now planted out and flowering cheerfully.  I first planted 'Stephanie' a couple of years ago, and was pleased enough with it that the two maltreated plants were bought to bulk up an existing group.  I guess that it might be derived from Geranium renardii, as it has similar sage-green scalloped leaves, and is said to like the same conditions.  The flowers of 'Stephanie' are a rich violet-blue, with purple veins, very pretty, and my plants are doing well on some of the thinnest, hungriest sand in the garden.  I would advise all gardeners on light soil (who like hardy geraniums) to seek it out.

Addendum  The robin eggs have hatched so did not cook in the heatwave.  I have put the frame with netting on it left over from the strawberries across the door as planned, which should at least deter the cats from wandering in there casually for a lie-down.  It is a relief the hen isn't sitting any more, as she did keep flying off the nest when I went in to water anything, and I have been reduced to making quick raids to collect things that need potting on, and doing the potting outside, sitting on a low wall with a wheelbarrow of compost.

Also the decking is officially finished.  We moved the last of the Hamamelis pots back on to the further deck in the back garden yesterday, and today some of the offcuts were used to make a doorstep for the door we mainly use.  It is functionally the back door, but is at the front of the house, and as built had an ugly concrete doorstep with a manhole cover in front of it.  The wooden doorstep covers both of these, and with any luck some of the gravel will fall out of the treads of our shoes before we and it make it into the house.  The Companion Animals are rather suspicious of the new doorstep, but they'll get used to it.  The decking looks very good in a Chelsea flower show sort of way.  I realised during construction that freshly cut cedar was one of the smells I associate with Chelsea.  In the end we had two or three deliveries from the timber company, as we used them for the beams as well.  They are called Silva Timber Products, and we found them reliable and good value.  (The bad news is that the chopped-down Hebe in front of the near deck are going to have to go.  Only clipped box will do, but at the thought of grubbing out five Hebe stumps my heart sinks).

a warm day at the plant centre

It's still busy at the plant centre.  Surprisingly so, given how dry the ground is getting.  It isn't really good planting weather.  Which said, I'm still buying plants myself.

A lot of customers don't seem to have grasped that we won't be opening tomorrow, on Easter Sunday.  People who rang to check whether we had things, or that I called to let them know that plants they wanted had arrived, kept saying that they'd come tomorrow, or that they wouldn't be able to come tomorrow, suggesting they thought we would be open, if they had been able to come.  The owners have put the Easter opening hours on the website and the answering machine message, but I've a feeling there are going to be some disappointed punters turning around in the drive tomorrow.

We have become agents for Haddonstone.  When I arrived at work last Monday a collection of composite stone urns and plinths and a couple of bird baths had appeared in front of the climber tunnel.  I moved one of the bird baths then, because it was placed exactly where it was likely get knocked over dragging the hose out to use, and today I moved the other for the same reason.  The top and the bottom are in two separate parts, and if I were to instal one at home I'm sure the top would fall off the first time a cat jumped on it (I'd give it one day maximum).  Even the small items are jolly heavy, and I'm waiting hopefully for some staff training about things like delivery charges, given that we can't send one driver out by themselves and expect them to unload fake stone plinths weighing 65kg single handed.  Also whether you are supposed to cement the top and bottom half of the bird bath together so that your cat or child can't knock the dish off the pedestal.  We have a glossy brochure of their entire product range on a lectern for customers to read, which implies we are willing to order items specially for people, in which case it would be useful to know how long that process takes.  For the time being if anybody asks about delivery, or ordering non-stock items, or how to stop the top falling off the bird bath, I shall have to admit that we've only just started stocking Haddonstone and refer them upwards to the manager, or take their details and get back to them later.  I don't think we've sold any yet.

It was so hot in the tunnels by lunchtime that I rang home and suggested putting a can of water on the greenhouse floor, to try and cool it down for the robin.  I know I ought to feel very privileged that this little wild creature has chosen to make her home with me, but actually she is a damn nuisance.  Each time she flies off the nest while I'm watering the plants I feel guilty.  She is getting braver at staying put, and I hope she doesn't abandon her eggs, but I'm not prepared to abandon a greenhouse full of plants.

unexpected lodgers in the greenhouse

Robins are nesting in my greenhouse.  I was watering one day, and stretched out my hand to remove a pile of leaves that seemed to have suddenly collected in a tray of bronze grasses, when I realised it was in fact a bird's nest.  There was no sign of any actual bird, and I assumed that the greenhouse had got too hot for them and that the nest was abandoned, as we'd had a couple of unusually warm and sunny days before I put this year's shading paint on.  I was beginning to think that if I removed it carefully and treated it for fleas my nieces and nephew might like it, when I saw one day that there was an egg in it.  Still no signs of birds, and I again thought it must be abandoned, but left it alone.  A day or two later I saw there was another egg, brownish pink.

My partner, who knows more about birds than I do, said that it was probably robins, as he'd seen them in that corner of the garden, and that they laid their clutch over several days but didn't start incubating them until they'd finished laying, so that all would hatch at the same time.  I had no idea that eggs were able to survive in limbo, at room temperature, until the parent bird was ready to sit, but I don't know much about the domestic habits of robins.

I looked into the greenhouse this morning and a pair of anxious eyes looked back at me over the top of the nest, so they have started sitting.  I'll try not to disturb them, but I'm not prepared to vacate the greenhouse entirely and not water any of the plants until the robins have finished nesting.  I think the best thing to do will be to not ever look at them directly, and pretend I haven't noticed them.  They can't be afraid of me per se, because they follow me around the garden when I'm weeding.

Searching around the internet I gather that the female incubates the eggs, but that both parents help feed the young.  They can have 2-3 clutches in a season, and it sounds as though they build a fresh nest each time, which I suppose is more hygienic but extra work for them.  It will be interesting to see how they get on, and how we rub along together.  I've got a wooden frame with netting over it, previously used for keeping the birds off some strawberries.  Incubation apparently lasts 12-15 days, and once the eggs get close to hatching I'd better see about leaving the frame wedged across the greenhouse door, to deter the cats from going in if they hear the babies squeaking for food.  It's not as tall as the door, so there'd be a gap at the top for the adults to fly through, plus I'm sure they're bright enough to discover the roof vents.