Gardening is a bit like holidays, in that the disasters are much more interesting to write about than the days when everything goes smoothly and you trundle around, having a nice time. Today was a beautiful sunny day, not too hot, not too cold, and in this Goldilocks world I dug, weeded, mulched, planted and picked up two sorts of stones, the rough and the smooth, without anything exciting happening at all.
White flowers are about to burst upon the garden. After the white of snowdrops it all goes yellow, with daffodils and primroses, and the chrome yellow flowers of Euphorbia, and blue and mauve, with hyacinths and grape hyacinths, violets and pasque flowers. Now the Osmanthus delavayi on the corner of the island bed in the back garden is just opening, and the buds on 'Taihaku' and the wild gean are, as the suppliers' weekly lists put it, showing colour. The trees are studded with knobs of white, and very soon will burst forth in a cloud of whiteness.
Three buzzards circled over the next door field for a long time. They often seem to occur in threes, and I wonder what the group consists of. Rival males and one female? Last year's chick still flocking with its parents? I need to find somebody who understands the habits of birds and ask them.
The Systems Administrator was all set to get the next coat of gloss paint on the section of barge board the scaffolding currently reaches, as the thermometer had hit the vital level of 15 degrees, but discovered that the new and unopened tin of paint bought last autumn and never used as the weather got too bad for painting, was not white, but Parisian Pink. The SA must have picked up the wrong tin from the DIY store shelf, and six months on, with no receipt, there's not a lot we can do with it except think of something we would like to paint pink. It looks rather a nice shade of pink, like a squashed strawberry, and I fancy a little pink summerhouse, but there isn't anywhere to put one.
We are starting to be able to tell the new little hens apart. One has yellow legs, which are very distinctive, and another has a row of dark feathers down the outside of her legs. One of the last two is lighter coloured than the other, so that we can tell them apart when they're side by side, but not necessarily identify either one in isolation.
I ran the hose on recently planted trees and renovated areas of the border while working. Digging holes to plant out hyacinths that have finished flowering in their pots, as I suspected the soil 25 centimetres below the surface is dust dry. A rose in the back garden, that was struggling last year, has suddenly died off in great sections. It is supposed to rain hard on Tuesday, which will force me to clean the house and get to grips with the beekeepers' treasury stuff, both of which urgently need doing, but quite apart from that we desperately need the rain.
About the only exciting thing to happen in the past 24 hours was that the big tabby set his ruff on fire. He has never done this before, and I thought he was more sensible than that around candles, but now know differently. He decided to march straight across the dining table just as I was snuffing the candles out after dinner, and suddenly I had a flaming cat on the loose. I managed to extinguish him before it could burn his skin, or he could set fire to the curtains, but the smell of burning fur was terrible. I don't think he understood in the least what had happened, so was bewildered that I'd suddenly hit him with the candle snuffer, and gave me a wide berth for the next couple of hours. Excitement is frequently greatly over-rated.
Showing posts with label watering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label watering. Show all posts
Sunday, 1 April 2012
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
uneasy thoughts of drought
The garden is beginning to look ominously dry. I did the watering by hand using cans, including the recently planted things in the end of the wood, and the area down the side of the back garden where I removed the Rosa rugosa 'Alba', and I remembered to go and water the 'Quaker's Bonnet' primula in the ditch bed, that I am now meant to call 'Lilacina Plena'. It took a good hour, and that was without soaking the conservatory. Tomorrow I am going to have to investigate the hoses, and find the spray end fittings that I removed last autumn so that they wouldn't freeze and split, and see if they still work, or at least can be persuaded to work, or if I'm going to have to buy new ones. They do have a tendency to stick and choke up with age and use.
I'm going to have to start watering all the trees and shrubs planted last year. They won't yet have large or well-established enough root systems to cope with this weather, and spring, when the new leaves are bursting, is a key time for them. Likewise all herbaceous plants set out last autumn, the newly purchased, those raised from seed, and existing garden stock that was lifted and divided. I renovated one end of a big border, and had to replace a large number of winter casualties, so it's going to be a lot of watering. I don't use sprinklers, which apply water over too wide and indiscriminate an area, and on plants' foliage rather than their roots. Instead I'll go around with the hose, plant by plant, and spray every root zone in turn, counting to thirty, fifty or sixty for each one, depending on how large the plant is and how dry it looks. I'll do one bed one evening, another the next, and so work my way round the garden over the course of a week.
At one level it's not an unpleasant task. It gives me a chance to stand looking at the garden, appreciating individual plants at close quarters, and picking up on aspects of planting that could do with improvement. I can listen to the radio while I'm doing it, and the intensive watering regime only lasts while the weather's warm. If we go back to an apparently endless cycle of low pressure systems sweeping in from the west, like we have in recent summers, then the need for emergency watering will fall right back. It does take time, though. The normal decorative pots plus my propagation efforts in the greenhouse can take an hour by themselves in the summer, so add in extra for the borders, and it can be getting on for a quarter of the gardening day just spent watering. It's time spent that will keep plants alive (on which I have expended much effort and expense getting them in the ground) but it doesn't progress the garden. Weeding, mulching, dead-heading, pruning, planting, laying paths, installing ornaments, bringing out pots for the summer, all of these make the garden better groomed or furnished than it was before. Spending hours watering it just to keep it from dying doesn't.
The damage done by those two cold nights in February continues to reveal itself. The regrowth on the Olearia macrodonta and the various Callistemon has been clobbered, and I'm not sure they will have the energy to regenerate again. The top parts of last year's Pittosporum tenuifolium 'Wrinkled Blue' have defoliated, and hard pruning will probably be required. Every leaf on the Michelia doltsopa is brown and shrivelled, which is galling when the one tucked into the corner between two walls at work is fine. Temperatures there went down to minus 13 in the open, showing what protection a wall can afford, and how narrow the margin is between receiving a clobbering and escaping unscathed. Arbutus x andrachnoides has lost most of its leaves, and although I don't think the whole tree is dead, there are quite a few dead twigs in the crown, which are going to spoil the look of it even when (or if) it leafs up again.
The spring weather is very beautiful, and the flowers of spring. Primroses, magnolias, little yellow Iris bucharica, pasque flowers, cherries, Muscari, over fifteen years' worth of hyacinths in a myriad of colours (though not pink) planted into the borders after doing duty in pots, species tulips, daffodils, violets, lesser periwinkle. The grass is still fresh and green, the leaf buds are bursting by the day, and the birds are singing from every bush and tree. Most of the time I enjoy it while it lasts. But the garden is beginning to look ominously dry. In years when by July things are flagging I can console myself that I only have to keep them going for another month or six weeks, and then it will cool down, even if there isn't much rain in September. Now it's still only March. Keeping things going for six months could be very hard work.
I'm going to have to start watering all the trees and shrubs planted last year. They won't yet have large or well-established enough root systems to cope with this weather, and spring, when the new leaves are bursting, is a key time for them. Likewise all herbaceous plants set out last autumn, the newly purchased, those raised from seed, and existing garden stock that was lifted and divided. I renovated one end of a big border, and had to replace a large number of winter casualties, so it's going to be a lot of watering. I don't use sprinklers, which apply water over too wide and indiscriminate an area, and on plants' foliage rather than their roots. Instead I'll go around with the hose, plant by plant, and spray every root zone in turn, counting to thirty, fifty or sixty for each one, depending on how large the plant is and how dry it looks. I'll do one bed one evening, another the next, and so work my way round the garden over the course of a week.
At one level it's not an unpleasant task. It gives me a chance to stand looking at the garden, appreciating individual plants at close quarters, and picking up on aspects of planting that could do with improvement. I can listen to the radio while I'm doing it, and the intensive watering regime only lasts while the weather's warm. If we go back to an apparently endless cycle of low pressure systems sweeping in from the west, like we have in recent summers, then the need for emergency watering will fall right back. It does take time, though. The normal decorative pots plus my propagation efforts in the greenhouse can take an hour by themselves in the summer, so add in extra for the borders, and it can be getting on for a quarter of the gardening day just spent watering. It's time spent that will keep plants alive (on which I have expended much effort and expense getting them in the ground) but it doesn't progress the garden. Weeding, mulching, dead-heading, pruning, planting, laying paths, installing ornaments, bringing out pots for the summer, all of these make the garden better groomed or furnished than it was before. Spending hours watering it just to keep it from dying doesn't.
The damage done by those two cold nights in February continues to reveal itself. The regrowth on the Olearia macrodonta and the various Callistemon has been clobbered, and I'm not sure they will have the energy to regenerate again. The top parts of last year's Pittosporum tenuifolium 'Wrinkled Blue' have defoliated, and hard pruning will probably be required. Every leaf on the Michelia doltsopa is brown and shrivelled, which is galling when the one tucked into the corner between two walls at work is fine. Temperatures there went down to minus 13 in the open, showing what protection a wall can afford, and how narrow the margin is between receiving a clobbering and escaping unscathed. Arbutus x andrachnoides has lost most of its leaves, and although I don't think the whole tree is dead, there are quite a few dead twigs in the crown, which are going to spoil the look of it even when (or if) it leafs up again.
The spring weather is very beautiful, and the flowers of spring. Primroses, magnolias, little yellow Iris bucharica, pasque flowers, cherries, Muscari, over fifteen years' worth of hyacinths in a myriad of colours (though not pink) planted into the borders after doing duty in pots, species tulips, daffodils, violets, lesser periwinkle. The grass is still fresh and green, the leaf buds are bursting by the day, and the birds are singing from every bush and tree. Most of the time I enjoy it while it lasts. But the garden is beginning to look ominously dry. In years when by July things are flagging I can console myself that I only have to keep them going for another month or six weeks, and then it will cool down, even if there isn't much rain in September. Now it's still only March. Keeping things going for six months could be very hard work.
Saturday, 25 February 2012
things are hotting up
The warmer weather is bringing the customers back like migrating birds. Some are regular visitors to the plant centre, commonly seen any time between spring and autumn. Others are new sightings. Some have made their way purposely to us in search of a particular plant, while others have the air of having just blown in and landed at random. We greet the familiar faces, and try to be nice to all of them.
New plants are starting to arrive in quantities too. The choice of herbaceous plants at this stage seems arbitrary. We've suddenly got the full gamut of hollyhocks, some lupins, a few achillea, and for some reason Centaurea montana and Hesperis matronalis. Delightful cottage garden plants, the last two, but scarcely the first names that would spring to mind if putting together a core range. The glasshouse-fresh foliage, so different to the winter-burned leaves on plants growing outside, is designed to tempt. Why else have a choice of half a dozen dwarf pinks, which won't start flowering for at least another month? Pots of Fritillaria meleagris, brought on under cover, are blooming weeks ahead of the ones in the garden. Bread-and-butter shrubs are starting to arrive too, variegated forms of Pittosporum tenuifolium and pyracantha. To a plant enthusiast they are not nearly so fascinating as the twigs that came in last week, but they score far more highly as eye candy.
We had to do some watering, outside as well as in the tunnels. We are out of practice after the winter break, hoses not in the right place, routes round the plant centre not honed to a precise routine. It takes a few days to learn to split the watering with a new team member. Initially you find dry patches that each person thought the other had done or would do, then with practice you develop the unspoken understanding that is a mark of all good teams, and everybody knows what the others are going to do without any need for discussion.
The manager had got us moving some of the shrubs that have over-wintered in the shelter of the tunnels back outside. We weren't too sure how cold he was expecting it to be tonight, as he'd also left instructions for us to wind down the tunnel sides, tuck fleece over the agapanthus and turn off the pump and the water tank at the end of the day. Turning off the irrigation fell to me, the other two saying they didn't know what we were supposed to be doing, so I hope I have clunked the correct lever and turned the right stop-cock, not being mechanically minded.
There were a couple of mystery plants to identify from samples. One looked like an alder of some sort, but not the common one, unless it was from a specimen that was doing far better than any of mine. The other looked more like some kind of Genista than anything else I could think of, though I was puzzled that the people asking had never noticed it flower. They await the manager's verdict on Monday morning, as does the almost-but-not-quite dead Hydrangea quercifolia, that has gone backwards for two and a half years. I wonder if two fierce winters separated by a drought sapped its will to live. All will be revealed on Monday.
The sun shone and the birds sang. Somebody brought in a gigantic and amiable black dog called Max, who wanted to smell everything, and thought that his owner's views on where she wanted to go need only have a very loose influence on his own progress. At home Max likes to sit on the sofa. She had to buy a second sofa. If you like plants and people watching then an up-market plant centre is an entertaining place to be, in the spring.
New plants are starting to arrive in quantities too. The choice of herbaceous plants at this stage seems arbitrary. We've suddenly got the full gamut of hollyhocks, some lupins, a few achillea, and for some reason Centaurea montana and Hesperis matronalis. Delightful cottage garden plants, the last two, but scarcely the first names that would spring to mind if putting together a core range. The glasshouse-fresh foliage, so different to the winter-burned leaves on plants growing outside, is designed to tempt. Why else have a choice of half a dozen dwarf pinks, which won't start flowering for at least another month? Pots of Fritillaria meleagris, brought on under cover, are blooming weeks ahead of the ones in the garden. Bread-and-butter shrubs are starting to arrive too, variegated forms of Pittosporum tenuifolium and pyracantha. To a plant enthusiast they are not nearly so fascinating as the twigs that came in last week, but they score far more highly as eye candy.
We had to do some watering, outside as well as in the tunnels. We are out of practice after the winter break, hoses not in the right place, routes round the plant centre not honed to a precise routine. It takes a few days to learn to split the watering with a new team member. Initially you find dry patches that each person thought the other had done or would do, then with practice you develop the unspoken understanding that is a mark of all good teams, and everybody knows what the others are going to do without any need for discussion.
The manager had got us moving some of the shrubs that have over-wintered in the shelter of the tunnels back outside. We weren't too sure how cold he was expecting it to be tonight, as he'd also left instructions for us to wind down the tunnel sides, tuck fleece over the agapanthus and turn off the pump and the water tank at the end of the day. Turning off the irrigation fell to me, the other two saying they didn't know what we were supposed to be doing, so I hope I have clunked the correct lever and turned the right stop-cock, not being mechanically minded.
There were a couple of mystery plants to identify from samples. One looked like an alder of some sort, but not the common one, unless it was from a specimen that was doing far better than any of mine. The other looked more like some kind of Genista than anything else I could think of, though I was puzzled that the people asking had never noticed it flower. They await the manager's verdict on Monday morning, as does the almost-but-not-quite dead Hydrangea quercifolia, that has gone backwards for two and a half years. I wonder if two fierce winters separated by a drought sapped its will to live. All will be revealed on Monday.
The sun shone and the birds sang. Somebody brought in a gigantic and amiable black dog called Max, who wanted to smell everything, and thought that his owner's views on where she wanted to go need only have a very loose influence on his own progress. At home Max likes to sit on the sofa. She had to buy a second sofa. If you like plants and people watching then an up-market plant centre is an entertaining place to be, in the spring.
Monday, 12 September 2011
oh the dreadful wind (though not rain)
The wind really arrived today. The plant centre was a mess of fallen pots, and we didn't try to run the automatic irrigation, as even if the pots had been the right way up, the water would have blown away before it hit them. We watered some things by hand, and the others were left to wait until the wind dropped. We didn't bother picking up the plants that had tipped up, since they would only have blown over again, each time with a fresh chance of breaking themselves, or squashing something else in the process.
We got off to a slightly chaotic start staff-wise. One of the part timers left a couple of months ago, after only about eighteen months with us. (Since I am sure she never reads this blog, I will risk venturing the opinion that it was no great loss, as she wouldn't do her fair share of the watering, refused to lift anything as large as a bag of compost, and didn't seem very keen on nursery work generally.) We almost covered the gap in the rota by agreeing that a former member of staff, who has been with the business practically since it started, off and on, would come back for three days a week. This left just one problem, which was that every other Saturday there were only two members of staff on duty. Two people is really not enough at this time of year, and so the manager has been plugging the gap on an ad hoc basis, which I presume we will continue to do until winter arrives and two people are plenty. He worked one Saturday himself, and the plan for next Saturday was for somebody else to do it, and take today off instead in lieu, and for the woman who normally works over on the other side to come in today so that there were three of us. Unfortunately, the person doing next Saturday completely forgot that she was supposed to take today off, and came in as normal, so there were four of us. The manager was worried that the boss would be cross to see four of us there, trade being as it is, and after much discussion she went home again. I thought she was remarkably nice about it. Granted, it was her mistake coming in, but she agreed to alter her working days in the first place to help the business out, and Saturday working is a pain, given that social stuff tends to happen then. Indeed, irregular working patterns are a nuisance. At least with set days each week you know what invitations you can and can't accept, and your friends and relations know when you are free (at least in theory. Some of mine have still not mastered the concept of every Monday and every other weekend after five years.) If I had got to work and discovered that I was not wanted on voyage, and that my efforts levering myself out of bed at six in the morning and burning a couple of quid's worth of petrol (more at current prices) shlepping up to Suffolk and back had been all in vain, I wouldn't have been so good-natured about it.
The manager was very cross to get a phone call from somebody enquiring whether we had a particular Viburnum in stock and if so whether it was in good condition, as a friend of her's had visited us yesterday and been very disappointed that there were plants lying down, and that many of them had yellowing leaves. The manager explained to her that yesterday had been windy, and that unfortunately pots did blow over, and that as it was the second week of September leaves were starting to die back and look a bit tired. Then he grumbled about her to me, and then to my colleague drafted in from the other side. A problem shared is a problem multiplied.
I had just started my lunch break and the phone got very busy. After a while the boss came over the radio, asking whether any of us could get the phone. The manager replied that he was with a customer, and I was at lunch. I kept quiet, but I thought that if you require your staff to help customers in the plant centre, and operate the till, and answer the phone, and you only have three of them, one of whom doesn’t do phones, then when it gets to lunchtime there may not be enough staff to do everything. You had a fourth member of staff first thing this morning, but she was sent home.
The day’s takings were further depressed by somebody returning two moderately expensive conifers, that she had decided were not suitable, and that what she needed was fastigiate yew. She had agreed with us over the phone that she could return the conifers. I think there were several conversations, and I know I was party to one of them, in which I politely suggested that if she didn’t want the plants we would prefer to have them back sooner rather than later, so that we could try and sell them to somebody else. I think she would have like to save herself a drive and hold on to them until we had the yew, but that might not have been for weeks or months, so I was pleased to see the conifers. They were in very good condition, so she had clearly kept them well watered, and I forgave her the fact that she had cut the prices off the labels before deciding she didn’t want them, and the manager had to faff about in the office finding out how much they were, and we will have to print new labels. Some customers who change their minds about plants bring them back in miserable condition, obviously believing that if it’s only a few days then the plant won’t need watering.
The wind didn’t drop all day, and I was rather relieved when it was quarter past five and I could go home.
We got off to a slightly chaotic start staff-wise. One of the part timers left a couple of months ago, after only about eighteen months with us. (Since I am sure she never reads this blog, I will risk venturing the opinion that it was no great loss, as she wouldn't do her fair share of the watering, refused to lift anything as large as a bag of compost, and didn't seem very keen on nursery work generally.) We almost covered the gap in the rota by agreeing that a former member of staff, who has been with the business practically since it started, off and on, would come back for three days a week. This left just one problem, which was that every other Saturday there were only two members of staff on duty. Two people is really not enough at this time of year, and so the manager has been plugging the gap on an ad hoc basis, which I presume we will continue to do until winter arrives and two people are plenty. He worked one Saturday himself, and the plan for next Saturday was for somebody else to do it, and take today off instead in lieu, and for the woman who normally works over on the other side to come in today so that there were three of us. Unfortunately, the person doing next Saturday completely forgot that she was supposed to take today off, and came in as normal, so there were four of us. The manager was worried that the boss would be cross to see four of us there, trade being as it is, and after much discussion she went home again. I thought she was remarkably nice about it. Granted, it was her mistake coming in, but she agreed to alter her working days in the first place to help the business out, and Saturday working is a pain, given that social stuff tends to happen then. Indeed, irregular working patterns are a nuisance. At least with set days each week you know what invitations you can and can't accept, and your friends and relations know when you are free (at least in theory. Some of mine have still not mastered the concept of every Monday and every other weekend after five years.) If I had got to work and discovered that I was not wanted on voyage, and that my efforts levering myself out of bed at six in the morning and burning a couple of quid's worth of petrol (more at current prices) shlepping up to Suffolk and back had been all in vain, I wouldn't have been so good-natured about it.
The manager was very cross to get a phone call from somebody enquiring whether we had a particular Viburnum in stock and if so whether it was in good condition, as a friend of her's had visited us yesterday and been very disappointed that there were plants lying down, and that many of them had yellowing leaves. The manager explained to her that yesterday had been windy, and that unfortunately pots did blow over, and that as it was the second week of September leaves were starting to die back and look a bit tired. Then he grumbled about her to me, and then to my colleague drafted in from the other side. A problem shared is a problem multiplied.
I had just started my lunch break and the phone got very busy. After a while the boss came over the radio, asking whether any of us could get the phone. The manager replied that he was with a customer, and I was at lunch. I kept quiet, but I thought that if you require your staff to help customers in the plant centre, and operate the till, and answer the phone, and you only have three of them, one of whom doesn’t do phones, then when it gets to lunchtime there may not be enough staff to do everything. You had a fourth member of staff first thing this morning, but she was sent home.
The day’s takings were further depressed by somebody returning two moderately expensive conifers, that she had decided were not suitable, and that what she needed was fastigiate yew. She had agreed with us over the phone that she could return the conifers. I think there were several conversations, and I know I was party to one of them, in which I politely suggested that if she didn’t want the plants we would prefer to have them back sooner rather than later, so that we could try and sell them to somebody else. I think she would have like to save herself a drive and hold on to them until we had the yew, but that might not have been for weeks or months, so I was pleased to see the conifers. They were in very good condition, so she had clearly kept them well watered, and I forgave her the fact that she had cut the prices off the labels before deciding she didn’t want them, and the manager had to faff about in the office finding out how much they were, and we will have to print new labels. Some customers who change their minds about plants bring them back in miserable condition, obviously believing that if it’s only a few days then the plant won’t need watering.
The wind didn’t drop all day, and I was rather relieved when it was quarter past five and I could go home.
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.
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
day two in the plant centre
Switching on the radio in the kitchen at twenty past six this morning, I deduced from the fact that the news was covering a story about the failure of US policy to support job creating businesses, that the riots had not escalated overnight. Watching last night's live TV cover of the flames spreading through the Croydon furniture store, with never a fire engine in sight as the fire ran out of control, was quite surreal. Though for students of London history the only true novelty was the real-time aerial view. Amanda Vickery's fascinating programme of tales from the Old Bailey looked at rioting just a couple of weeks ago. The mob ye have always with ye. Human nature doesn't change that quickly, even if the young nowadays do possess more electronics than put the first man on the moon, and believe that potatoes grow on trees.
Yesterday's wind had dried things out considerably at work, and meant that we couldn't run any of the automatic irrigation overnight. There were a lot of fallen pots to pick up this morning, and only two of us working in the plant centre, and we hadn't quite finished the watering by the time the first customers arrived. Two of them very nearly got soaked when the automatics in the herbaceous section started up, but fortunately managed to skip out of the way in time. The fact that we were a lot wetter than they were also mollified them.
The gardener has been removing trees this week that have succumbed to honey fungus. This disease is a risk to any garden, and in one that has been in cultivation for over a hundred years is probably almost bound to strike somewhere. The boss is admirably philosophical about it, saying it's a pity to lose them, but it's a chance to plant new things and he'll try something fungus resistant in their place. Styrax was mentioned. Two of the casualties are good sized acers, a snakebark and a nice specimen of A. vitifolium which I always liked, but it can't be helped.
The boss has an odd habit of meeing suppliers and contractors in the back of the shop, instead of the house. Yesterday's visitor was a salesman the boss knew, who has recently moved to a new firm dealing in pet supplies including bird food. They spent most of the time actually talking about chickens, discussing breeds, auto-sexing chicks, methods of hatching eggs, and treatments for scaly leg. Today it was somebody who must be allowed to shoot muntjac on the farm, and the talk was of deer routes, where to put towers on which to watch and wait, gun in hand, the difficulties of stopping children playing on the towers, and the impracticability of shooting deer from horseback. It was all timeless and oddly soothing. Generations of Suffolk men have sat discussing poultry and hunting (though not muntjac given they were only introduced to the UK in 1925).
We were given the pet food literature to compare margins with those on bird food from our existing supplier. The new firm's leaflet didn't make it clear which prices were inc. and which ex. VAT, and when I rang them up the person who answered the phone didn't know, and by close of play nobody had rung me back. I found out the answer (or at least an answer) by calling the salesman on his mobile. The potential new supplier offers lower prices to us, and suggests lower selling prices which would give us a lower percentage margin and smaller absolute mark-up. This might or might not work to our disadvantage depending on the price elasticity of bird food.
Travelling home, the drawback of having to cross the main railway line was again brought home to me as the underpass was shut, leaving all traffic to go over the level crossing. Between trains. The queue had backed up a good mile across the marshes, and I began to wish that I hadn't not bothered to stop for petrol the previous evening, as the Skoda's indicated range was down to 55 miles. The tank and gauge seem curiously non-linear in slow traffic, and 55 miles can drop down to 20 in a lot less than 35 miles. I was caught at the top of the ramp to cross the line by the barriers going down again. Once they lifted and I switched the engine back on I revved it ostentatiously (which is unlike me) to reassure myself that it would lift me up the last few feet and over the line without stalling on the tracks.
Addendum The Systems Administrator has an idea for controlling rioters, which is to spray them with pig slurry. Not high pressure water cannon that knock people off their feet, just hoses of stinking ordure. The theory is that you exploit the Yuk factor, since once rioters and looters have slurry dripping down their faces, running around throwing missiles at the police or anything else won't seem fun, and anything you steal will be ruined, not to mention unsellable. Detection ought to be easier for the next couple of days as well. The S.A. is a fan of the Goon Show, and this idea does seem to owe something to Rice Puddings Shot from Catapults. It is almost a joke, except that it might even work.
Yesterday's wind had dried things out considerably at work, and meant that we couldn't run any of the automatic irrigation overnight. There were a lot of fallen pots to pick up this morning, and only two of us working in the plant centre, and we hadn't quite finished the watering by the time the first customers arrived. Two of them very nearly got soaked when the automatics in the herbaceous section started up, but fortunately managed to skip out of the way in time. The fact that we were a lot wetter than they were also mollified them.
The gardener has been removing trees this week that have succumbed to honey fungus. This disease is a risk to any garden, and in one that has been in cultivation for over a hundred years is probably almost bound to strike somewhere. The boss is admirably philosophical about it, saying it's a pity to lose them, but it's a chance to plant new things and he'll try something fungus resistant in their place. Styrax was mentioned. Two of the casualties are good sized acers, a snakebark and a nice specimen of A. vitifolium which I always liked, but it can't be helped.
The boss has an odd habit of meeing suppliers and contractors in the back of the shop, instead of the house. Yesterday's visitor was a salesman the boss knew, who has recently moved to a new firm dealing in pet supplies including bird food. They spent most of the time actually talking about chickens, discussing breeds, auto-sexing chicks, methods of hatching eggs, and treatments for scaly leg. Today it was somebody who must be allowed to shoot muntjac on the farm, and the talk was of deer routes, where to put towers on which to watch and wait, gun in hand, the difficulties of stopping children playing on the towers, and the impracticability of shooting deer from horseback. It was all timeless and oddly soothing. Generations of Suffolk men have sat discussing poultry and hunting (though not muntjac given they were only introduced to the UK in 1925).
We were given the pet food literature to compare margins with those on bird food from our existing supplier. The new firm's leaflet didn't make it clear which prices were inc. and which ex. VAT, and when I rang them up the person who answered the phone didn't know, and by close of play nobody had rung me back. I found out the answer (or at least an answer) by calling the salesman on his mobile. The potential new supplier offers lower prices to us, and suggests lower selling prices which would give us a lower percentage margin and smaller absolute mark-up. This might or might not work to our disadvantage depending on the price elasticity of bird food.
Travelling home, the drawback of having to cross the main railway line was again brought home to me as the underpass was shut, leaving all traffic to go over the level crossing. Between trains. The queue had backed up a good mile across the marshes, and I began to wish that I hadn't not bothered to stop for petrol the previous evening, as the Skoda's indicated range was down to 55 miles. The tank and gauge seem curiously non-linear in slow traffic, and 55 miles can drop down to 20 in a lot less than 35 miles. I was caught at the top of the ramp to cross the line by the barriers going down again. Once they lifted and I switched the engine back on I revved it ostentatiously (which is unlike me) to reassure myself that it would lift me up the last few feet and over the line without stalling on the tracks.
Addendum The Systems Administrator has an idea for controlling rioters, which is to spray them with pig slurry. Not high pressure water cannon that knock people off their feet, just hoses of stinking ordure. The theory is that you exploit the Yuk factor, since once rioters and looters have slurry dripping down their faces, running around throwing missiles at the police or anything else won't seem fun, and anything you steal will be ruined, not to mention unsellable. Detection ought to be easier for the next couple of days as well. The S.A. is a fan of the Goon Show, and this idea does seem to owe something to Rice Puddings Shot from Catapults. It is almost a joke, except that it might even work.
Sunday, 31 July 2011
wet feet and only one till
Driving to work this morning I passed quite a collection of motor bikes and their riders in the lane where they congregate early on Sunday mornings. All were men, wearing full leathers, and while I didn't get a very close view driving by at 30mph I was left with the distinct impression that they were all over 40, if not 50. The bikes, as far as I could tell as a non-expert who has never ridden one and never intends to, were large and expensive. I wonder if they all know each other, or if it is free to anyone to turn up and join in, like a ramblers' group. Presumably there is a grapevine, since there is for every hobby I've ever had, and people involved in the motorbike scene pick up what's going on.
The watering took the three of us fully two hours. It hadn't been set to run overnight, so we were trying to run rather a lot of different bits of irrigation at the same time this morning, which caused the pressure to drop slightly, with the unfortunate effect that my hose dribbled disastrously over my trousers and shoes at the point where it clips on to the end of the hose. Or at least, I think it was mainly down to low pressure. The hose and lance connections are both lined with rubber rings, which are supposed to form a seal and can perish, but they depend on the pressure of the water to force them together. My trousers, being thin cotton, dried pretty quickly, but I trudged around in damp plimsolls for most of the rest of the day. I must put them in the laundry room now to dry them out fully before tomorrow.
The bosses had people staying with them, and apart from a brief conversation first thing, we didn't hear a peep out of them for the rest of the day. The tills from the previous day had not been reconciled, leaving us only one to use. I've now worked there for slightly over eight years, and nobody has ever shown me how to do the till reconciliation. Given my previous City incarnation I expect I could get the hang of it. A colleague who had not been trained by the management either, but had once been shown by a co-worker, said she didn't mind trying to reconcile yesterday's till and risk being told off for doing it wrong, but we didn't really see why she should. If we'd got desperate for two tills I suppose the answer would have been to tip the entire contents of one of the unreconciled ones into an envelope, or a saucepan, or whatever we could find, and extract a float of known quantity to start us off today. In fact we weren't that busy, and managed with one. This was partly down to luck as well as it being another quiet day, in that we didn't have any customers who midway through the transaction managed to cause a hold-up. Compared to Tesco we seem to get a lot of people who only discover after we have rung up their goods that their purse is in their car, or they have forgotten it and need to find their other half who is somewhere in the plant centre and make them pay, or their card doesn't work, or they need multiple goes at their pin, or they wander off to find just one more thing they meant to buy.
On the way home I came upon a horse and rider stationary on the pavement. The horse was ignoring its rider's urges to go forward, and after a bit began to go backwards, and then to go round in circles. I stopped the car and waited for developments. The horse moved on to the road, and swung around alarmingly. A car coming the other way stopped as well, and I began to wonder how much damage it would do to a Skoda Fabia being kicked by a large horse. The rider was a young woman, who looked jolly cross. Eventually the horse moved into forward gear, and they walked on up the road. I let them get a considerable lead on me, and the oncoming car let them get well past before either of us moved. The horse seemed quite placid once it had finished its hissy fit. I quite like horses, but when I see one misbehaving on the road always remember the warning heard once on R4, that the thing to remember is that a horse is a ton of muscle controlled by a brain the size of a pigeon's.
The watering took the three of us fully two hours. It hadn't been set to run overnight, so we were trying to run rather a lot of different bits of irrigation at the same time this morning, which caused the pressure to drop slightly, with the unfortunate effect that my hose dribbled disastrously over my trousers and shoes at the point where it clips on to the end of the hose. Or at least, I think it was mainly down to low pressure. The hose and lance connections are both lined with rubber rings, which are supposed to form a seal and can perish, but they depend on the pressure of the water to force them together. My trousers, being thin cotton, dried pretty quickly, but I trudged around in damp plimsolls for most of the rest of the day. I must put them in the laundry room now to dry them out fully before tomorrow.
The bosses had people staying with them, and apart from a brief conversation first thing, we didn't hear a peep out of them for the rest of the day. The tills from the previous day had not been reconciled, leaving us only one to use. I've now worked there for slightly over eight years, and nobody has ever shown me how to do the till reconciliation. Given my previous City incarnation I expect I could get the hang of it. A colleague who had not been trained by the management either, but had once been shown by a co-worker, said she didn't mind trying to reconcile yesterday's till and risk being told off for doing it wrong, but we didn't really see why she should. If we'd got desperate for two tills I suppose the answer would have been to tip the entire contents of one of the unreconciled ones into an envelope, or a saucepan, or whatever we could find, and extract a float of known quantity to start us off today. In fact we weren't that busy, and managed with one. This was partly down to luck as well as it being another quiet day, in that we didn't have any customers who midway through the transaction managed to cause a hold-up. Compared to Tesco we seem to get a lot of people who only discover after we have rung up their goods that their purse is in their car, or they have forgotten it and need to find their other half who is somewhere in the plant centre and make them pay, or their card doesn't work, or they need multiple goes at their pin, or they wander off to find just one more thing they meant to buy.
On the way home I came upon a horse and rider stationary on the pavement. The horse was ignoring its rider's urges to go forward, and after a bit began to go backwards, and then to go round in circles. I stopped the car and waited for developments. The horse moved on to the road, and swung around alarmingly. A car coming the other way stopped as well, and I began to wonder how much damage it would do to a Skoda Fabia being kicked by a large horse. The rider was a young woman, who looked jolly cross. Eventually the horse moved into forward gear, and they walked on up the road. I let them get a considerable lead on me, and the oncoming car let them get well past before either of us moved. The horse seemed quite placid once it had finished its hissy fit. I quite like horses, but when I see one misbehaving on the road always remember the warning heard once on R4, that the thing to remember is that a horse is a ton of muscle controlled by a brain the size of a pigeon's.
Saturday, 30 July 2011
flashes of life in the retail trade
The manager has gone on holiday for a fortnight. It is the first time he has ever taken a whole consecutive two weeks off, and he left behind a folder containing instructions on what we should do in his absence, starting with an introductory page about correct watering techniques, and then with an A4 sheet for each of us listing our jobs for the duration. Mine include keeping the display tables looking good, as far as possible given the plant material available, with the comment that he knew he did not need to tell me, but that plants on the display tables should be weed free. I thought that since he didn't need to tell me, and knew it, telling me anyway was mildly irritating. Later on when I went up to the office to leave a message for the boss I saw that the manager had left a photocopy of the folder contents on the boss's desk, so he is obviously trying to cover his back, in case while he is away we don't bother to water properly and let the place become a tip.
Back-covering is a popular managerial activity, and without it there would be many fewer corporate e-mails sent, but leaving people notes telling them how to do their jobs properly seems to me entirely futile. In a plant centre, being able to water effectively is what you would term a key competence. After their first week in the job, let alone several years, everyone should know that it is important to soak the compost, not just splash the foliage, and make sure the plants at the back get done as well as the ones at the front. If I thought anyone I was supervising wasn't fulfilling one of their most basic tasks I'd speak to them, with eye contact, and some searching questions to find out why not. Happily I don't have to supervise anyone nowadays.
A couple of largish trolleys went through, which must have boosted the day's takings. Somebody bought a compost bin shaped like a traditional beehive (i.e. WBC, for the beekeepers among you) for £209.99, and someone else bought a Photinia trained as a standard and a large box ball which together came to three hundred quid. That's the sort of thing that gets the average spend up. We do our best, trotting around to find an extra plant that a customer is looking for, or steering them towards larger packets of chemicals, but you need an awful lot of those to add up to three hundred pounds. The compost bin lady even ordered another one. Ours at home are made out of recycled softwood from the old decking, and on Gardeners' World last night Monty's were made out of corrugated iron, but if people want £209.99 compost bins we are happy to meet the need.
I never discovered what the day's total was, as I spent the last bit of the afternoon loading a large shrub and three bags of multipurpose compost into my car. A customer wanted them delivered to the next village, which we don't even charge for as it is so close, and as my colleague explained that because of staff holidays nobody would be available to drive the van before next Wednesday at the earliest, I thought that since I drove home past her door I might as well just drop them off. She accepted this offer with alacrity, and I realised that my boot was half full of bits of firewood I'd collected last Tuesday and forgotten to take out. I'll look on that as my random act of kindness for the weekend.
Back-covering is a popular managerial activity, and without it there would be many fewer corporate e-mails sent, but leaving people notes telling them how to do their jobs properly seems to me entirely futile. In a plant centre, being able to water effectively is what you would term a key competence. After their first week in the job, let alone several years, everyone should know that it is important to soak the compost, not just splash the foliage, and make sure the plants at the back get done as well as the ones at the front. If I thought anyone I was supervising wasn't fulfilling one of their most basic tasks I'd speak to them, with eye contact, and some searching questions to find out why not. Happily I don't have to supervise anyone nowadays.
A couple of largish trolleys went through, which must have boosted the day's takings. Somebody bought a compost bin shaped like a traditional beehive (i.e. WBC, for the beekeepers among you) for £209.99, and someone else bought a Photinia trained as a standard and a large box ball which together came to three hundred quid. That's the sort of thing that gets the average spend up. We do our best, trotting around to find an extra plant that a customer is looking for, or steering them towards larger packets of chemicals, but you need an awful lot of those to add up to three hundred pounds. The compost bin lady even ordered another one. Ours at home are made out of recycled softwood from the old decking, and on Gardeners' World last night Monty's were made out of corrugated iron, but if people want £209.99 compost bins we are happy to meet the need.
I never discovered what the day's total was, as I spent the last bit of the afternoon loading a large shrub and three bags of multipurpose compost into my car. A customer wanted them delivered to the next village, which we don't even charge for as it is so close, and as my colleague explained that because of staff holidays nobody would be available to drive the van before next Wednesday at the earliest, I thought that since I drove home past her door I might as well just drop them off. She accepted this offer with alacrity, and I realised that my boot was half full of bits of firewood I'd collected last Tuesday and forgotten to take out. I'll look on that as my random act of kindness for the weekend.
Friday, 3 June 2011
a lucky miss and obsession with watering
I'm terribly grateful that I decided not to grow any vegetables or anything from seed this year. It wasn't that I had any prescient foresight of how bad the drought was going to be, just that as I looked at the mess the garden was in after two hard winters I thought that something was going to have to give, while I caught up with myself, and veg and seedlings are both time-consuming. It's the first time for over twenty years that I haven't had pots and trays of new young plants on the go. I love raising plants from seed, and I'd even put in a modest order to Chiltern Seeds, but as my normal seed sowing date in the second week of February slipped by and it got to March, I realised that there simply wasn't going to be time this year. At that point I made the policy decision to give the veg a miss too. I like homegrown vegetables, especially the things you can't easily buy like small absolutely fresh broad beans, and the Systems Administrator will miss not having a large pile of beetroot to pickle, but the sowing and weeding and watering do take ages. Surrounded by dead shrubs to remove and blank stretches of borders, rapidly filling up with weeds, I thought that reclaiming the ornamental planting was more urgent. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, watering the veg would have been a nightmare, and the seedlings would probably have cooked at some point in the greenhouse despite my best efforts with shading paint.
Watering is becoming the all-consuming task, and I plan each day's work on the basis of what needs watering most badly and positioning myself in that part of the garden. Today I largely dispensed with actual gardening, and spent the time mostly watering, standing over a needy plant, hose in hand, counting to sixty, then on to the next one. It is no longer a question of whether the cherry tree will drop its fruit (although, amazingly, they are still on the branches), but which plants look as though they are actually going to die without water. The Zelkova carpinifolia has got dieback on the south facing side (which could of course be Dutch Elm Disease, but I think is drought, as it isn't displaying the characteristic shepherd's crook curling at the twig tips). I ran the hose for twenty minutes on a Malus floribunda, which I would normally never consider watering, but its leaves, small, incurved and the wrong shade of green, were signalling acute distress.
We have arrived at an efficient system of hoses over the years. The outside tap leads to a four-way distributor, each outlet with its own valve which can be open or shut. One hose, with spray nozzle permanently attached, leads down to the conservatory, where it lives coiled in a largish flower pot when not in use. The hose is just long enough to reach everything in pots in the back garden, as well as into the conservatory. A second hose, again with permanent spray attachment, is long enough to reach to the extremities of both the front and back gardens, and is kept flaked down by the dustbins when not in use. (Since at the moment it is in almost constant use it is currently in the front garden by the chicken house). A third hose leads to a second tap up by the vegetables, where there is another long hose that will reach to all the fruit, the veg patch, and up the meadow by the wood. We've got spare lengths of hose so this can be extended if needs be to reach to the very far end of the meadow. The fourth hose is short, and is used to fill cans at the tap. There used to be a fifth hose that was led permanently to my greenhouse, but that split where it used to get run over, and at the moment I'm using the all-purpose long hose. I might replace it, on the other hand it was a bore with five hoses and four spaces to plug them in, always having to keep switching them over.
Labelling the individual hoses is the least satisfactory part. I wrote descriptions on plastic plant labels and tied them to the hoses with wire, but they kept sliding down out of sight and the labels broke. Recently I thought I was being very efficient tying tape round them, and writing on the tape with marker pen, but the pen smeared and wore off. Now each is permanently plumbed in I simply remember which location feeds which hose.
We did find ourselves forgetting to turn the outside tap off after use, which could be wasteful of water if a fitting came loose, so I made a token, consisting of a short length of hose on wire, designed to be hung from the front door handle when the tap is in use. The theory is that we can't go back into the house without being reminded that the tap is still on. I took the idea from the railway safety system for ensuring that only one train was on a given length of track, and was rather pleased with it. It is a good system, as long as we bother to use the token.
Watering is becoming the all-consuming task, and I plan each day's work on the basis of what needs watering most badly and positioning myself in that part of the garden. Today I largely dispensed with actual gardening, and spent the time mostly watering, standing over a needy plant, hose in hand, counting to sixty, then on to the next one. It is no longer a question of whether the cherry tree will drop its fruit (although, amazingly, they are still on the branches), but which plants look as though they are actually going to die without water. The Zelkova carpinifolia has got dieback on the south facing side (which could of course be Dutch Elm Disease, but I think is drought, as it isn't displaying the characteristic shepherd's crook curling at the twig tips). I ran the hose for twenty minutes on a Malus floribunda, which I would normally never consider watering, but its leaves, small, incurved and the wrong shade of green, were signalling acute distress.
We have arrived at an efficient system of hoses over the years. The outside tap leads to a four-way distributor, each outlet with its own valve which can be open or shut. One hose, with spray nozzle permanently attached, leads down to the conservatory, where it lives coiled in a largish flower pot when not in use. The hose is just long enough to reach everything in pots in the back garden, as well as into the conservatory. A second hose, again with permanent spray attachment, is long enough to reach to the extremities of both the front and back gardens, and is kept flaked down by the dustbins when not in use. (Since at the moment it is in almost constant use it is currently in the front garden by the chicken house). A third hose leads to a second tap up by the vegetables, where there is another long hose that will reach to all the fruit, the veg patch, and up the meadow by the wood. We've got spare lengths of hose so this can be extended if needs be to reach to the very far end of the meadow. The fourth hose is short, and is used to fill cans at the tap. There used to be a fifth hose that was led permanently to my greenhouse, but that split where it used to get run over, and at the moment I'm using the all-purpose long hose. I might replace it, on the other hand it was a bore with five hoses and four spaces to plug them in, always having to keep switching them over.
Labelling the individual hoses is the least satisfactory part. I wrote descriptions on plastic plant labels and tied them to the hoses with wire, but they kept sliding down out of sight and the labels broke. Recently I thought I was being very efficient tying tape round them, and writing on the tape with marker pen, but the pen smeared and wore off. Now each is permanently plumbed in I simply remember which location feeds which hose.
We did find ourselves forgetting to turn the outside tap off after use, which could be wasteful of water if a fitting came loose, so I made a token, consisting of a short length of hose on wire, designed to be hung from the front door handle when the tap is in use. The theory is that we can't go back into the house without being reminded that the tap is still on. I took the idea from the railway safety system for ensuring that only one train was on a given length of track, and was rather pleased with it. It is a good system, as long as we bother to use the token.
Saturday, 28 May 2011
watering and weeding
I ended up spending today working in the top part of the garden. I had a few plants sitting in their plastic pots that would have been better off in the ground, and their intended site was ready for them, so it seemed sensible to get on and plant them. I had promised that I would start clearing the nettles and weeds in the bottom part of the garden where we are supposed to be building a new deck to make a sheltered, shady place to sit in the summer, but the work in the front took all day. Things planted this spring needed watering, as did things planted last autumn, and some planted longer ago than that.
The Strulch has been proving its worth, as there was a marked contrast in weediness between the areas I'd mulched (a few odd weeds) and the areas left bare pending further planting (a generous crop of groundsel, and sundry fat hen, chickweed, and sow thistle). I pulled these up, and planted the buckets of Muscari armenaicum bulbs that have been sitting in the woodshed since I dug them up a couple of months ago when I was forking the bed over. Some people hate this grape hyacinth, because it is weedy and ineradicable and spreads like hell, but I don't mind it spreading. It is pretty, and this is a self-seeding sort of garden anyway, and frankly I'm grateful to anything that really wants to grow and flower in the arid sand at the top of the slope (apart from the creeping sorrel). I strulched the gaps to avoid a fresh crop of weeds, and will push the mulch aside when I come to plant them up.
The olive tree still shows no signs of making new leaves, but is green under the bark, and has about two green leaves hanging on in the middle. I'll tidy up the thin twigs at some point soon which I'm sure are dead, but I cling to hope that there might be life further down. I have run the hose on it a couple of times. Something that has pleasantly surprised me by shooting from the base is the Colletia paradoxa. This is a strange shrub. The branchlets are reduced to flat, extremely sharp, triangular spines. The plant is greyish green, and carries sweetly scented small white flowers in autumn. Hillier's manual of trees and shrubs describes it as being rather slow growing, and it is, although mine speeded up appreciably after being put on a diet of 6X, fish blood and bone, and very occassional irrigation in dry spells, which make me think that despite its gaunt appearance it enjoys good living. By the end of winter the whole plant was burned and brown, and I though I had lost it, but today I found green shoots coming from below soil level. They were a fresh shade of green with little leaves, not very like the mature branches, and at first I wondered if they were some new weed, but identical shoots were growing from the base of the stem, just above ground level, so unless the plant was originally grafted, which I don't think it was, these must be the immature shoots. I haven't chopped off the dead top yet, partly because I was busy doing other things, and partly to protect the new shoots from accidents, principally me treading on them. The frail new shoots of a white Lespedeza, that had made it up to a few cm tall, seem to have disappeared without trace in the droughty vastness.
The wind had got quite a nip in it when the sun went in, and I stomped around the hall, garage and greenhouse searching for my fleece hat, and worrying that I must have left it in the garden somewhere, before finding it in the kitchen full of lumps of white quartz that I carried up from the conservatory in it about two weeks ago in order to wash them. It is fortunate that I share a house with somebody who thinks it's OK to keep a hat full of stones on the kitchen worktop for a fortnight.
The Strulch has been proving its worth, as there was a marked contrast in weediness between the areas I'd mulched (a few odd weeds) and the areas left bare pending further planting (a generous crop of groundsel, and sundry fat hen, chickweed, and sow thistle). I pulled these up, and planted the buckets of Muscari armenaicum bulbs that have been sitting in the woodshed since I dug them up a couple of months ago when I was forking the bed over. Some people hate this grape hyacinth, because it is weedy and ineradicable and spreads like hell, but I don't mind it spreading. It is pretty, and this is a self-seeding sort of garden anyway, and frankly I'm grateful to anything that really wants to grow and flower in the arid sand at the top of the slope (apart from the creeping sorrel). I strulched the gaps to avoid a fresh crop of weeds, and will push the mulch aside when I come to plant them up.
The olive tree still shows no signs of making new leaves, but is green under the bark, and has about two green leaves hanging on in the middle. I'll tidy up the thin twigs at some point soon which I'm sure are dead, but I cling to hope that there might be life further down. I have run the hose on it a couple of times. Something that has pleasantly surprised me by shooting from the base is the Colletia paradoxa. This is a strange shrub. The branchlets are reduced to flat, extremely sharp, triangular spines. The plant is greyish green, and carries sweetly scented small white flowers in autumn. Hillier's manual of trees and shrubs describes it as being rather slow growing, and it is, although mine speeded up appreciably after being put on a diet of 6X, fish blood and bone, and very occassional irrigation in dry spells, which make me think that despite its gaunt appearance it enjoys good living. By the end of winter the whole plant was burned and brown, and I though I had lost it, but today I found green shoots coming from below soil level. They were a fresh shade of green with little leaves, not very like the mature branches, and at first I wondered if they were some new weed, but identical shoots were growing from the base of the stem, just above ground level, so unless the plant was originally grafted, which I don't think it was, these must be the immature shoots. I haven't chopped off the dead top yet, partly because I was busy doing other things, and partly to protect the new shoots from accidents, principally me treading on them. The frail new shoots of a white Lespedeza, that had made it up to a few cm tall, seem to have disappeared without trace in the droughty vastness.
The wind had got quite a nip in it when the sun went in, and I stomped around the hall, garage and greenhouse searching for my fleece hat, and worrying that I must have left it in the garden somewhere, before finding it in the kitchen full of lumps of white quartz that I carried up from the conservatory in it about two weeks ago in order to wash them. It is fortunate that I share a house with somebody who thinks it's OK to keep a hat full of stones on the kitchen worktop for a fortnight.
Monday, 23 May 2011
more wind and more watering
We were watering this morning until quarter to eleven, so we wouldn't have got it all done last night. At twenty past nine a customer approached me, saying that she knew we didn't open until ten, but was there somebody who could help her with a query about a rose. I told her that I was terribly sorry, but we didn't open until ten, and until then we were fully occupied with the watering, which we had to do given how dry everything was with the wind, but she was very welcome to browse around and look at the roses, as long as she didn't fall over a hose. Her reaction to this refusal to help was restrained, but she looked disappointed and vaguely incredulous, as though her having admitted she knew we weren't open somehow made it alright and entitled her to full service. I don't think she stuck around until ten, and she will probably not like us now, and tell her friends how unhelpful we are, which is sad, but there simply wasn't time to spare. The manager was delayed coming in, there were only two of us working in the plant centre, and the wind strength meant that the only automatic irrigation system we could use was the one covering the trees, as that sprays 45cm above the ground and some of the water does manage to hit the pots before it all blows away. I think it was a strategic error to have opened the gate from the car park.
At twenty to ten the phone went, and the caller wanted advice about Ceanothus. I apologised and asked if I could possibly call her back after ten when we had finished the watering. She was very nice about it, and after that I asked the woman who works in the office if she could field all further calls until we'd finished. I did remember to call back, and ended up recommending 'Puget Blue', which is becoming my standard anwer to all questions about Ceanothus.
The plant centre looked as though a pack of wild dogs had just run through it. In the course of picking things up to water them I managed to water my own feet extremely thoroughly. I should have put my wellingtons on before starting. Instead I changed into them when I'd finished, and put my soaking plimsolls and socks to dry on the dashboard of my car. They were bone dry and toasty by six.
A former colleague at the plant centre, who now works full-time as a garden designer, rushed in wanting evergreens for a client garden. She was in a quandry whether to go for something more unusual, but tender, or whether to stick with Choisya ternata. My advice was that there was no point in risking a dubiously hardy rarity unless the client was going to appreciate what it was. Otherwise, if it lived they wouldn't appreciate its significance, and if it died, they might be upset. Some people, especially those who are not very confident with plants themselves, do take plant deaths extremely personally. The trouble with being a garden designer is that it is like being an architect. You have visions of a creation, but need other people's money to fulfil them. My ex-colleague agreed that this was indeed so, and that she would be planting the Pittosporum tobira 'Nana' for herself and not for her client. She took the Choisya.
At five I started watering again. It was still blowing three quarters of a gale. I hope it is not going to disrupt proceedings at Chelsea, which is where the Systems Administrator and I are going tomorrow. With any luck the wind will have dropped by next Monday, as I am getting heartily fed up with the incessant watering and plants falling over, and it is getting pretty repetitive writing about it.
At twenty to ten the phone went, and the caller wanted advice about Ceanothus. I apologised and asked if I could possibly call her back after ten when we had finished the watering. She was very nice about it, and after that I asked the woman who works in the office if she could field all further calls until we'd finished. I did remember to call back, and ended up recommending 'Puget Blue', which is becoming my standard anwer to all questions about Ceanothus.
The plant centre looked as though a pack of wild dogs had just run through it. In the course of picking things up to water them I managed to water my own feet extremely thoroughly. I should have put my wellingtons on before starting. Instead I changed into them when I'd finished, and put my soaking plimsolls and socks to dry on the dashboard of my car. They were bone dry and toasty by six.
A former colleague at the plant centre, who now works full-time as a garden designer, rushed in wanting evergreens for a client garden. She was in a quandry whether to go for something more unusual, but tender, or whether to stick with Choisya ternata. My advice was that there was no point in risking a dubiously hardy rarity unless the client was going to appreciate what it was. Otherwise, if it lived they wouldn't appreciate its significance, and if it died, they might be upset. Some people, especially those who are not very confident with plants themselves, do take plant deaths extremely personally. The trouble with being a garden designer is that it is like being an architect. You have visions of a creation, but need other people's money to fulfil them. My ex-colleague agreed that this was indeed so, and that she would be planting the Pittosporum tobira 'Nana' for herself and not for her client. She took the Choisya.
At five I started watering again. It was still blowing three quarters of a gale. I hope it is not going to disrupt proceedings at Chelsea, which is where the Systems Administrator and I are going tomorrow. With any luck the wind will have dropped by next Monday, as I am getting heartily fed up with the incessant watering and plants falling over, and it is getting pretty repetitive writing about it.
Sunday, 22 May 2011
wind and watering
My co-workers on Sundays both have a diligent attitude to watering. It took the three of us until half past ten, and we made a pretty thorough job of it. The boss rang before we'd finished, to remind me to check that the water tank was filling up from the well, as the pump has been playing up recently. I had forgotten I was supposed to do this, but when I climbed the ladder to look into the tank, the water came to within a metre of the top, and the pump was whirring reassuringly away. The boss called from the great marquee at Chelsea, where he is moderating. There is a profile of him in the show catalogue. It took much careful thought to explain what moderators do in terms that would not offend the judges, since they are the answer to the question, Who judges the judges, but to say so suggests that judges cannot be trusted to get things right by themselves. Apparently the marquee is looking very colourful. I thought that the exhibitors would pull things together somehow, despite the weather, but they must have had a nerve wracking time of it in the run up to the show.
My Roberto Burle Marx display didn't last the day, as somebody bought all but one of the lime green santolinas. I recreated the effect with some pale yellow Roscoea and some extra purple leaved geraniums. Soft yellow and dusky purple are a good combination, and I must try and use it at home somewhere.
The wind got up horribly, and by the end of the day the plant centre looked almost as if it had been ransacked. We tended to leave plants lying down for the duration once they'd fallen, since if picked up they only blow over again, each time with the risk of damage to themselves or their neighbours. Actually if some of the largest ones were to fall on a small or frail customer it could be quite traumatic. The customers were very good about picking their way around the wreckage. The drying effect of that much wind is as bad as days of sun (the farmers must be at the ends of their tethers), but it was impossible to run most of the overhead irrigation systems usefully, since strong wind whips the water away before it hits the pots. The three of us started watering again at five, as did the second of the two owners, who won't go to London for Chelsea until tomorrow, not being involved in the judging. We were never going to get around the entire plant centre by six, and at that point I was ready to call it a day, as was the owner. My colleagues were very reluctant to stop spraying water on just one more thirsty plant. It's true that if you love plants, you hate to leave any in less than optimum conditions, but I don't think this should extend to doing an hour or two of unpaid overtime at the end of a ten hour working day, and in fairness to the owner I don't think she expected us to.
My Roberto Burle Marx display didn't last the day, as somebody bought all but one of the lime green santolinas. I recreated the effect with some pale yellow Roscoea and some extra purple leaved geraniums. Soft yellow and dusky purple are a good combination, and I must try and use it at home somewhere.
The wind got up horribly, and by the end of the day the plant centre looked almost as if it had been ransacked. We tended to leave plants lying down for the duration once they'd fallen, since if picked up they only blow over again, each time with the risk of damage to themselves or their neighbours. Actually if some of the largest ones were to fall on a small or frail customer it could be quite traumatic. The customers were very good about picking their way around the wreckage. The drying effect of that much wind is as bad as days of sun (the farmers must be at the ends of their tethers), but it was impossible to run most of the overhead irrigation systems usefully, since strong wind whips the water away before it hits the pots. The three of us started watering again at five, as did the second of the two owners, who won't go to London for Chelsea until tomorrow, not being involved in the judging. We were never going to get around the entire plant centre by six, and at that point I was ready to call it a day, as was the owner. My colleagues were very reluctant to stop spraying water on just one more thirsty plant. It's true that if you love plants, you hate to leave any in less than optimum conditions, but I don't think this should extend to doing an hour or two of unpaid overtime at the end of a ten hour working day, and in fairness to the owner I don't think she expected us to.
Monday, 2 May 2011
wretched wind
Another bank holiday Monday, another day at the plant centre. I woke up this morning full of ideas of what I was going to do in the garden, then remembered I had to go to work.
The wind is a real nuisance in a plant retail operation. Pots blow over, plants break their branches or crush their neighbours, and the compost dries out terribly quickly. It's impossible to use the overhead irrigation systems, except for the trees where the nozzles are low down, as the water blows around everywhere instead of soaking into the pots, so everything except the trees has to be watered by hand. Sometimes you stand a pot back upright and it has blown over again before you can water it. We started watering at just after 8.00am, and I was still watering until 10.40am, then started again at 4.50pm and went on until 6.00pm. My colleague was watering the behind-the-scenes area the other side of the car park, that customers don't go into, until noon.
There is a Paeonia rockii in one of the borders in the plant centre, in full flower. A customer asked me what it was, and I had to tell her that we didn't have any, and might not be getting them for a long time. Other customers wanted to know where they could get lunch: we don't have a cafe. Given the tough time British pubs are facing, it seems very unenterprising of our local hostelries not to put leaflets about their food offering in our shop. We don't do food, except for biscuits, apple juice and coffee out of a machine, and we're always being asked for recommendations by customers who are making a day out of it.
Somebody wanted an idea for a shrub to flower late on in the year, and seemed happy with my suggestion of Heptacodium miconioides, the Seven son flower of Zhejiang. It comes from China, but was only introduced to UK gardens relatively recently, and doesn't even have an entry in my copy of Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles. It carries white, scented flowers at the ends of its branches in autumn, and after the petals drop the display is continued (in a good year) as the calyxes turn red, and (in a good year) it produces red berries. It is one of those plants that I liked as soon as I saw it. It is a rapid grower: the plants we have in the plant centre have made at least 20cm of extension growth already this season, while confined to their pots. Another customer was greatly taken with the leaves and open habit of Lomatia tinctoria. It is a good-looking plant, and I was able to tell her that based on my own (statistically insignificant) experience of growing one plant, once, it seemed straightforward and easy in cultivation. I do like it when customers are keen and willing to try unusual plants.
The William and Kate tea towels haven't sold. I didn't think they would. I suppose the owner can always use them in a post-modern ironic way to dry things with.
The wind is a real nuisance in a plant retail operation. Pots blow over, plants break their branches or crush their neighbours, and the compost dries out terribly quickly. It's impossible to use the overhead irrigation systems, except for the trees where the nozzles are low down, as the water blows around everywhere instead of soaking into the pots, so everything except the trees has to be watered by hand. Sometimes you stand a pot back upright and it has blown over again before you can water it. We started watering at just after 8.00am, and I was still watering until 10.40am, then started again at 4.50pm and went on until 6.00pm. My colleague was watering the behind-the-scenes area the other side of the car park, that customers don't go into, until noon.
There is a Paeonia rockii in one of the borders in the plant centre, in full flower. A customer asked me what it was, and I had to tell her that we didn't have any, and might not be getting them for a long time. Other customers wanted to know where they could get lunch: we don't have a cafe. Given the tough time British pubs are facing, it seems very unenterprising of our local hostelries not to put leaflets about their food offering in our shop. We don't do food, except for biscuits, apple juice and coffee out of a machine, and we're always being asked for recommendations by customers who are making a day out of it.
Somebody wanted an idea for a shrub to flower late on in the year, and seemed happy with my suggestion of Heptacodium miconioides, the Seven son flower of Zhejiang. It comes from China, but was only introduced to UK gardens relatively recently, and doesn't even have an entry in my copy of Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles. It carries white, scented flowers at the ends of its branches in autumn, and after the petals drop the display is continued (in a good year) as the calyxes turn red, and (in a good year) it produces red berries. It is one of those plants that I liked as soon as I saw it. It is a rapid grower: the plants we have in the plant centre have made at least 20cm of extension growth already this season, while confined to their pots. Another customer was greatly taken with the leaves and open habit of Lomatia tinctoria. It is a good-looking plant, and I was able to tell her that based on my own (statistically insignificant) experience of growing one plant, once, it seemed straightforward and easy in cultivation. I do like it when customers are keen and willing to try unusual plants.
The William and Kate tea towels haven't sold. I didn't think they would. I suppose the owner can always use them in a post-modern ironic way to dry things with.
Friday, 29 April 2011
a dry season
I didn't watch the Royal Wedding. It's not really my sort of thing, but I'm glad today turned out fine, given all the people who did want to line the route, or hold their own street parties. The lack of rain is getting serious, though. A while back the Systems Administrator, who likes technology, added to the data empire by investing in an electronic weather station. This takes all sorts of weather related measurements and transmits them by wireless back to a base station in the house, which displays and stores them. They can be downloaded to the p.c. and in theory we could analyse them and produce graphs and tables galore.
The rain gauge requires at least 0.7mm precipitation in one go to read it. In total since 1st March it has recorded 9mm, which is a seriously small amount of rain. 9mm is less than half an inch. Even allowing for one or two showers of less than 0.7mm that's a pathetic amount of rain to fall in nearly two months. Coastal north Essex is one of the dryest places in the country, but we expect to get around 21 inches or 525mm per annum on average. Since the start of March we're running at an annualised rainfall of around 50mm or 2 inches.
An increasing proportion of each gardening day is spent watering. Watering recent plantings, watering the fruit (we had a dry April last year, I didn't water the sweet cherry enough, and after a good set it dropped its entire crop), watering trees planted within the past year, and things badly hit by last winter's cold but which I think might have the capacity to resprout if the drought doesn't finish them off, and the little patch of new turf where I cleared away the bags of left-over sand. I felt a certain wry amusement one of the last times I visited Hyde Hall, where after going past the much trumpeted Dry Garden (never irrigated after initial planting) I saw the sprayers going on the borders even though there wasn't then a drought. Nothing here is routinely irrigated, apart from edible crops and recent plantings, and the plants in most of the garden, not just the gravel garden, are chosen for their modest moisture requirements. No border phlox or delphiniums or monarda here, and few viburnums. If this weather goes on much longer, however, then even established plants will start showing signs of acute stress, and will require a drenching with the hose.
If I were having a house built from scratch, I would instal a grey water capture system and a very large underground water storage tank during the initial construction. It is so much easier to fit these things at the outset than to retrofit. We are eyeing up the price of water tanks once again, as there would be room for quite an array of them under the veranda, but they are expensive. The last time we did the maths we would have to fill them from captured water a lot of times for it to be cheaper than buying the water out of the tap. We debate getting the well going again too, but again pumps are costly and tend to break down, and it's not clear we would manage to pump enough water to make the investment worthwhile.
The rain gauge requires at least 0.7mm precipitation in one go to read it. In total since 1st March it has recorded 9mm, which is a seriously small amount of rain. 9mm is less than half an inch. Even allowing for one or two showers of less than 0.7mm that's a pathetic amount of rain to fall in nearly two months. Coastal north Essex is one of the dryest places in the country, but we expect to get around 21 inches or 525mm per annum on average. Since the start of March we're running at an annualised rainfall of around 50mm or 2 inches.
An increasing proportion of each gardening day is spent watering. Watering recent plantings, watering the fruit (we had a dry April last year, I didn't water the sweet cherry enough, and after a good set it dropped its entire crop), watering trees planted within the past year, and things badly hit by last winter's cold but which I think might have the capacity to resprout if the drought doesn't finish them off, and the little patch of new turf where I cleared away the bags of left-over sand. I felt a certain wry amusement one of the last times I visited Hyde Hall, where after going past the much trumpeted Dry Garden (never irrigated after initial planting) I saw the sprayers going on the borders even though there wasn't then a drought. Nothing here is routinely irrigated, apart from edible crops and recent plantings, and the plants in most of the garden, not just the gravel garden, are chosen for their modest moisture requirements. No border phlox or delphiniums or monarda here, and few viburnums. If this weather goes on much longer, however, then even established plants will start showing signs of acute stress, and will require a drenching with the hose.
If I were having a house built from scratch, I would instal a grey water capture system and a very large underground water storage tank during the initial construction. It is so much easier to fit these things at the outset than to retrofit. We are eyeing up the price of water tanks once again, as there would be room for quite an array of them under the veranda, but they are expensive. The last time we did the maths we would have to fill them from captured water a lot of times for it to be cheaper than buying the water out of the tap. We debate getting the well going again too, but again pumps are costly and tend to break down, and it's not clear we would manage to pump enough water to make the investment worthwhile.
Monday, 4 April 2011
the days are lengthening
Now that it's April, we finish work at 6.00pm, and will for the next three months. That's a long working day. The amount of hand watering is increasing, too. Our main display beds for trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants have overhead irrigation systems, but there are many odd corners that have to be done by hand, including the display tables, the large specimen shrubs that won't fit on the shrub beds, the areas where we keep plants that have been reserved for people, and the deciduous Euonymous, which for some reason are martyrs to fungal diseases if they sit on mypex fabric and get even a tiny bit too wet. The hoses are one inch diameter (I think. Don't think they've gone metric yet), which is a smaller bore than the hoses we used to have when I first started there, but they are around 50m long, and heavy to pull around the plant centre when full of water. We can't even lift them, but drag them section by section so that we aren't attempting to move the entire hose at once. Our hand watering routine is not yet as slick as it will be in a few weeks' time, as it is easy over the winter to forget the best routes around the plant centre and the optimal order to do things in, and odd plants have been put down on corners where they turn out to get in the way, when you are trying to drag a large hose about. All of this will be refined and improved with practice. By the height of summer, in really hot spells, we can be hand watering from 8am until 10.0am or 10.30am, and then start again by 4.30pm and go on until 6.00pm.
We get a few customers who have worked out that although we don't open until 10.00am, the staff are there from 8.00am onwards. They try to come early so that they can catch us 'when we are less busy'. What they refuse to see is that we are busy, with the watering, and that we don't want them falling over the hoses while we do it. The prospect of being caught by the automatic irrigation system puts some off, otherwise we have to be firm with them.
A couple of customers appeared in the plant centre at one minute to six. I suppose that serves us right for not shutting the gate from the car park at 5.00pm when we closed. They knew that we had closed an hour previously, but smiled at us with goofy nervous smiles and a hopeful air that as we were still there we might serve them. I rather wish people wouldn't do that. Although the plant centre staff are absolutely not on commission, we are commercial enough that we would rather have a sale than not. Plus we are all moderately kind and polite people. But it is a long day, and even shop staff have other stuff to do when they get home. I explained (moderately politely) that we did shut at five and that I was going to cease being paid in one minute's time, and I would help them if they knew what they wanted. It turned out they wanted a rose, which was fairly quick, but then they wanted a camellia as well. The manager offered to stay to sort them out, which was noble of him. Reader, if you insist on going into a small business an hour after they shut, remember that the staff may have already been there for ten hours and may be tired. And if it is a hot day they may have another hour's watering to do in their own garden when they got home, or, as in my case this evening, be planning to go out.
We get a few customers who have worked out that although we don't open until 10.00am, the staff are there from 8.00am onwards. They try to come early so that they can catch us 'when we are less busy'. What they refuse to see is that we are busy, with the watering, and that we don't want them falling over the hoses while we do it. The prospect of being caught by the automatic irrigation system puts some off, otherwise we have to be firm with them.
A couple of customers appeared in the plant centre at one minute to six. I suppose that serves us right for not shutting the gate from the car park at 5.00pm when we closed. They knew that we had closed an hour previously, but smiled at us with goofy nervous smiles and a hopeful air that as we were still there we might serve them. I rather wish people wouldn't do that. Although the plant centre staff are absolutely not on commission, we are commercial enough that we would rather have a sale than not. Plus we are all moderately kind and polite people. But it is a long day, and even shop staff have other stuff to do when they get home. I explained (moderately politely) that we did shut at five and that I was going to cease being paid in one minute's time, and I would help them if they knew what they wanted. It turned out they wanted a rose, which was fairly quick, but then they wanted a camellia as well. The manager offered to stay to sort them out, which was noble of him. Reader, if you insist on going into a small business an hour after they shut, remember that the staff may have already been there for ten hours and may be tired. And if it is a hot day they may have another hour's watering to do in their own garden when they got home, or, as in my case this evening, be planning to go out.
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