Monday 6 October 2014

Hairy Socks

Good morning all.

Very busy week, squeezed on 3 more tunnel covers before the weather turned and shipped out plenty of lovely plants. Lots of boxes here now, all spaced out and stacked up to dry out before winter storage. We just have a few more to hoover up, so if you find any more needing collection do drop me an email and I will add you to the list. I know we still have a couple of pick- ups in the Wiltshire direction as well as some towards London.
Last week’s surprise expenditure completed its third instalment with an odd incident when the plastic mounting bracket that holds our little Dosatron diluter on it's trolley broke while no one was on site, unfortunately it then landed on its hose tail and snapped it off so had to buy two specialist new parts. They were delivered brilliantly quickly via Fargro only for me to discover on reassembly that there was a hairline fracture of the top casing as well. Fiddle de dee!
Wood store full of old conifer hedge trunks all seasoned, cut, split and ready for winter, just the nursery store to fill now and there is plenty of scrap wood to fill that too. Chimney swept too, bring it on. Keep those oil deliveries down. Wind turbines have been a bit slow over the past couple of months in the good weather but at least our electric consumption continues to fall too which is good to see (wouldn’t know if we didn’t measure it. Dull but true).
Off to the shops to see the outside world today, very excited as I’ve got to do my holiday shopping (nearly out of hole-less socks, thought I might struggle through till Christmas but no such luck). Rock on.
Availability
Fresh stock is growing well ready for the autumn surge!
Asters are showing bud and flower and looking great. Particularly good are Rosenwitchel, Starlight, Lady in Blue and Snowsprite.
Hellebourus are just starting to come ready with a few new additions to the range. We are trying a new H. orientalis selection called Crown Dark Purple which is reported to flower after its first winter, it is certainly coming on nicely at the moment. We have a few H. niger Praecox to try out and three great new H. viridus varieties which are looking very smart and distinctly different from each other. ‘Silver & Rose’ has attractive solidly silvered foliage, ‘White Green’ has deep green leaves with strong cream veining, and ‘Rose Green’ has a more glaucous green leaf with pretty flush of pink in the stems and some leaf veining. Nice short varieties looking enthusiastic in their pots.
Flowers showing on the Erodium Bishops form which never seems to stop once it starts.
Evergreen Bergenia’s are now making a tidy pot ready to produce their early spring colours. Ajuga’s looking smart, nice pot full’s of coloured foliage.
Another winter interest group are the Pulmonaria’s. We have extended the range this winter with the white edged leaves of David Ward (pink flowers) and the pretty white spring flowers of Sissinghusrt White (sold out for now) held above white spotted leaves. The regular stunners are still there, Blue Ensign (pale leaves but the best blue flowers), the fabulously variegated/white blotched leaves of Opal with its lovely delightful pale blue flower in spring and the narrow spotty leaved E.B. Anderson.
We have had a really good round up of trays over the last couple of weeks but if anyone still has any of our wooden boxes ready for collection please do drop us an email and we will pop in and retrieve them. We can then prepare ourselves for some winter whittling and repairs. Thanks.

Have a good one, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

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