Monday 10 August 2015

Hairy Speculation

Morning all,

Really packed it in this week, still lots of sales which is great although a little distracting from the potting and propagation we are trying to get flying for next year’s crops. Luckily the potting compost and new module long-life trays got through the channel crossing holdups. Hardly any illegal’s tipped out of the compost lorry so no worries there. We had a nice crop of our summer casuals this week so managed to get quite a bit done. It’s all a bit on and off with this summers crew as they work out fitting in their lifts, days off and financial needs and when combined with the regular summer holidays I’m never quite sure what the turn out will be each week. Luckily when they are here lots does get done. I know next week we are a few short for some days so that will add to the exciting variety of challenges of managing a nursery in the summer.
We had our NBIS meeting this week, our quarterly nurseryman therapy session. Nice pub lunch, nursery tour, and a meeting sat in a field in the sunshine. We all unburdened our woes and triumphs feeling a lot better afterwards. We have been doing this for so long we can be very open with each other sharing our experiences good and bad with certain knowledge that we will get a sympathetic ear, plenty of opinions and a healthy dose of ridicule and laughter. Despite a year when the weather has been reasonably favourable in many areas for most of the season and many nurseries have sold through well, there is a real air of caution. Probably a sensible approach considering how much most of us lost over the previous few seasons, don’t get too over excited and overdo it. I wonder if you can guess what I did. OK I might have got a bit carried away on the young plant purchasing front but I did learn a lot! Speculate to accumulate and all that. The speculating bit I’m good at, the latter perhaps not so. Just you wait to see what appears over the next year, we’ll be flying. Managed a trip out last Sunday, needed a restock of summer socks. Went really well, Caroline got to use up her 20% off offer on quite a collection of essentials but in the excitement still forgot to cash in my birthday gift voucher. We’ve been out twice now since March and failed to cash in my goodies. One more chance before we go away on our hols in November. Why is it only when I’m out does the light catch the strays weaving from the ear top into the main crop, despite thorough checking before leaving the house. It’s not fair.

Availability highlights
Only a couple of varieties left this week of our new range of compact hardy Chrysanthemums. Great little plants with masses of bud already appearing. They are naturally branching with no need for pinching in a lovely colour range. The odd flower is now just flashing a bit of colour.
As well as the new chrysanthemums we have also introduced some new mildew resistant Asters. The Aster ageratiodes varieties run a fantastically long flowering period from late July right through to November, forming neat mounds of dainty flowers. The slight downside is the restricted colour palette which currently falls in a white, pale blue, pale mauve range, but they are all real charmers. The first buds have appeared with the occasional open flower. Achillea Moonshine is back in bud and flower and we have nice chunky Red Velvet showing bud again too. Helleborus are coming back on stream now as they gather their strength for a great winter display.
Absolutely stonking Ajugas in different foliage colours and forms. Fantastic ground cover and bursting with vigour. Summer sunshine in a pot, Coreopsis are looking brilliant, plenty of colour on the Sunfire and the larger flowered Corey Yellow, plenty of bud and flowers now open on the feathery leaved golden flowered Zagreb. Now in bud and flower are our Leucanthemum Banana Creme, it has very attractive large daisy flowers of varying shades of cream/pale yellow. Not many left now.
Have a good one, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

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