Monday 29 October 2018

Antiqued Hairyness

Morning all,
After another delightful week weather wise, today has come as a bit of a shock. A cold northerly makes it feel a tad wintery and the boilers are chugging away in the prop tunnel trying to keep those young plants growing. Unfortunately the new office is still on pallets in the barn, ideally I should be tucked up in a new highly insulated and cosy hideaway rather than freezing my extremities in a leaky and cold portacabin. Just too much to do at the moment to get started, so it will have to wait a few weeks until we are all caught up elsewhere.
A few more chores satisfyingly completed this week, the boilers all serviced and fine-tuned, just in time for the cold snap and the phone system mended at last. Slightly bizarre ending to the phone saga, we accidently mended it ourselves! The base stations for the cordless phones all pass through a small network switch which had its power cable accidentally removed, all the cordless phones went dead, but on plug re-insertion all returned to normal with the previous faults cured. If in doubt turn it off and on again! Just need to pick the right bit to turn off. What a relief.
Several new frost proof taps installed around the nursery to make the winter freeze ups a bit less damaging and watering-in the potting less stressful when the spring arrives. Three tunnels have been emptied out of stock for a good clean up with just a few more to go. Some of the evergreen stock is already tidied and bark topping applied, to help suppress the liverwort growth that can detract from the plant appeal and add costly time onto the springtime despatch work. We have added yet more insulation to the prop tunnel heating system in an effort to further pin back the oil consumption. I'm hoping the returns will be swift, although it may well be a couple of winters before the payback time is reached. Jam tomorrow, but a warm glow of smugness inside today.
The lab store got a well needed coat of wood preservative to keep the damp out and looks very smart, we went for a radical change to a dark colour and ended up with an unexpected distressed/antiqued effect which looks just fine. We'll give it another coat as soon as we get a run of a couple of dry days, to achieve the necessary coverage and that will be another job ticked off the list.
Can't hang about, got to get the dinner on before dashing out for a big night out at a quiz in the village hall. It's all go, or at least, it might be later.

WOODEN BOX RETURNS
Thanks to everyone who has rustled together their boxes ready for return. We have a really good number back here now, all cleaned and stacked to fully dry out, with loads of pallets already tucked away in the barn. We have visited most sites now and our van trips have dropped away, so we won't be coming by quite as often, however please do keep in touch and let us know if you have a batch to go and we will try and get round to you at some point.

Availability highlights
Helleborus orientalis in a variety of colours are now well under way, for that winter interest and early exotic colour. Stonking bushy plants which are from a strain (Crown series) that has a high percentage of first season flowering. I hardly dare mention it, but there are a few odd plants threatening to flower already. I haven't put them on the list as being in bud as there aren't
that many yet.
Viola Konigin Charlotte traditionally flowers in the spring with its deep violet colour and stunning scent, but we find it does produce a pretty smattering in the autumn too. Looking and smelling great.
The late summer flowering Anemones are still looking good in many gardens if not too battered by the recent winds, and we have some looking strong.
Compact and chunky Leucathemum Banana Creme with lovely bud showing and the odd splash of delightful pale yellow. Many of the Asters are still in bud or flower. The massively popular Erigeron karvinskianus Stallone is still sprouting plenty of flower buds, full of promise and dainty colours. If the weather is not too harsh we have had these still flowering at Christmas before now.
Foliage starts to be of interest at this time of year and there are some good shows of colour from the Carex Evergold, Ajuga, Heuchera, Lamium and Euphorbia.
Have a good week from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Monday 22 October 2018

Riskily Hairy

Morning all,

What a great autumn we are having down here. Striking winter foliage colour and some glorious sunny days to appreciate all that splendour. Perhaps it's partly the release of pressure with more relaxed sales volumes and the end of potting nigh, but feeling pretty jolly. A few of those long standing maintenance tasks got completed last week with the prop house heating system all up and running again thanks to the help of an expert engineer from Tom Tech , the boiler chimney got refitted into the roof by us, so it doesn't leak water into and heat out of the tunnel anymore and a several old and poorly external taps were replaced with more frost resistant and less leaky versions in preparation for the coming cooler months. We loaded the big van to the roof with our waste plastic collected over the year to drop into Ecogen next week and the pallets of card are ready for a second follow-on trip. Just in time to make enough space in the barn for the next container of pots which arrived on Thursday, all ready for the early spring potting. All very satisfying to get completed, albeit a tad costly.
I had a slog at my huge and complex label and stock spreadsheets this week to try and pin down our label requirements for the coming season. Floramedia who make our colour pot labels, are keen to get stuck into our next project so that the stock can be ready for the start of next year. The colour pot labels are the last main component of our perennial plant sales package that uses plastic, but from next season we are going to start replacing these with a waterproofed card label, a material called B500. If the label was being inserted into the compost itself it would have a fairly short shelf life because water can ingress along the label edge when held in long term damp conditions, but by using our bamboo skewer mounted design the label is held just above the compost rather than in it, so the ingress is much slower. We are helping pay for a new label cutter, needed to subtly adjust the position of the slots in the new label, so that the label retains its integrity for as long as possible. You shouldn't notice any real difference with the new label, the overall look will be very similar, although if you are unlucky enough to hold a bit of stock for a very long time we may need to replace the odd label if there is too much deterioration. There is always an element of risk on being the first to do anything and it seems additional costs, but it feels like the right thing to do and without some element of risk life might get a bit dull!
Sorry to have to repeat this message but our cordless phones are still misbehaving so if you don't get through to us directly on the phone please do leave a message or drop us an email. We are ever hopeful of a solution as we await another phone engineer visit.

WOODEN BOX RETURNS
Thanks to everyone who has rustled together their boxes ready for return. We have a really good number back here now, all cleaned and stacked to fully dry out, with loads of pallets already tucked away in the barn. We have visited most sites now and our van trips have dropped away, so we won't be coming by quite as often, however please do keep in touch and let us know if you have a batch to go and we will try and get round to you at some point.

Availability highlights
Helleborus orientalis in a variety of colours are now well under way, for that winter interest and early exotic colour. Stonking bushy plants which are from a strain (Crown series) that has a high percentage of first season flowering. I hardly dare mention it, but there are a few odd plants threatening to flower already. I haven't put them on the list as being in bud as there aren't
that many yet.
Viola Konigin Charlotte traditionally flowers in the spring with its deep violet colour and stunning scent, but we find it does produce a pretty smattering in the autumn too. Looking and smelling great.
The late summer flowering Anemones are still looking good in many gardens if not too battered by the recent winds, and we have some looking strong. Compact and chunky Leucathemum Banana Creme with lovely bud showing and the odd splash of delightful pale yellow. We have a fresh patch of Achillea Moonshine in bud on short stems with its attractive, silver leaves.
Many of the Asters are still in bud or flower. The massively popular Erigeron karvinskianus Stallone is still sprouting plenty of flower buds, full of promise and dainty colours. If the weather is not too harsh we have had these still flowering at Christmas before now.
Foliage starts to be of interest at this time of year and there are some good shows of colour from the Brunnera variegata, Carex Evergold, Ajuga, Heuchera, Lamium and Euphorbia.
Have a good week from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Monday 15 October 2018

Warm and Hairy

Morning all,
A feeling of control is beginning to come back onto the nursery as end of the mad potting season comes within sight. One more day of spring flowering bulbs to pot up, then the last batch of Erysimums to see off and we can nearly relax. We have even started to make a dent in the backlog of other jobs that have been hanging around for a while. The prop house is close to readiness to fulfil its valuable winter work, the inside of the cover is clean so that we can make the most of the available light, some of the grow-lights lights are programmed to add a few hours to the day-length and the heating system is halfway through its pre-winter servicing and repairs. We have been struggling with heaters in the cooler end of the prop tunnel for a while, the fans that move the warm air across the area have been misbehaving and the under-floor heating pipes have been working on a manual valve for ages. It adds up to both an embarrassingly inefficient use of the heating oil and a risky strategy for keeping the plants free from damage in the cold if we don't keep on top of things. It is usually in the worst of the weather that these issues come to a head and you wish you had sorted it all out beforehand but the cost of getting in the climate control experts from far afield tends to put you off if you think you can cope. Anyway this week we got them in and quickly sorted out the broken relays in the computer system to control the heater fans. They are back next week to fit a new computer controlled valve to accurately control the under-floor heating too. What a relief it is to have it being dealt with and feel the heating is running as efficiently as it can and the plants are safe too, let's hope the bill is not too scary!
I took the time on Friday to pop over to our local recycling company (Ecogen) who have been in the horticultural press recently as they are potentially looking to recycle some of the plastic pots and materials that could be collected by garden centres and nurseries. I stopped by to book in our own delivery of card and plastic waste that we have accumulated over the year and catch up on the different sorts of material that we could send in. I thought it was a handy moment to ask how the pot recycling idea was panning out and from the conversation I had I'm not sure quite how effective / practical smaller scale pot recycling from individual sites is going to be. The economics of recycling are so tight that they need to be dealing with very large volumes to make it pay, collecting by the lorry load rather than by the pallet load, otherwise it just turns into a huge transport/logistics exercise costing lots of money which the waste producers are not often prepared to pay. Bigger sites or chains may have the volume, infrastructure and storage space to make it work but for many looking to this sort of solution there are going to be some disappointments. All the issues are still there that have caused the breakdown of previous pot recycling schemes, the direct financial material values involved are very low but the handling, storage and transport costs are high. Maybe the motivation to do something is a higher than before, but as soon as the costs hit home the financiers are not going to be happy. Then we have the pots suitable for kerbside collections to think about, again the finances hit home with many local authorities doing less with plastics than before or even nothing at all, due to a lack of desire or simply a lack of funding. Life is complicated and I can't say I know the answers, but it's going to need a commitment above and beyond the 'norm' to make a real difference. We are having a go at it, but it will take us all to push for real change if things are to improve.
A fun Green Impact audit last week, two young students to show round and hopefully impress. We await a report, but ever hopeful of getting to the top of the class. Never happened at school, but better late than never!
WOODEN BOX RETURNS
Thanks to everyone who has rustled together their boxes ready for return. We have a good number back here now, all cleaned and stacked to fully dry out, with loads of pallets already put away in the barn. We have been round most sites now and our van trips have dropped away so we won't be coming by quite as often, however please do keep in touch and let us know if you have a batch to go and we will try and get round to you at some point.
Availability highlights
Viola Konigin Charlotte traditionally flowers in the spring with its deep violet colour and stunning scent, but we find it does produce a pretty smattering in the autumn too. Looking and smelling great.
The late summer flowering Anemones are still looking good in many gardens if not too battered by the recent winds, and we have some looking strong.
Compact and chunky Leucathemum Banana Creme with lovely bud showing and the odd splash of delightful pale yellow. We have a fresh patch of Achillea Moonshine in bud on short stems with its attractive, silver leaves. Many of the Asters are still in bud or flower.
The massively popular Erigeron karvinskianus Stallone is still sprouting plenty of flower buds, full of promise and dainty colours. If the weather is not too harsh we have had these still flowering at Christmas before now. Foliage starts to be of interest at this time of year and there are some good shows of colour from the Brunnera variegata, Carex Evergold, Ajuga, Heuchera, Lamium and Euphorbia.

Have a good week from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Monday 8 October 2018

Fashionable Hairy

Morning all,

Another lovely week here, warm and sunny until this morning, now it's wet with a nippy wind which is a bit of a shock. Suddenly the need to get the new office put together seems a bit more urgent. Trouble is we can't find the time to get out of the old one and into the temporary one, let alone getting the demolishing and prep done for the new one. Any thoughts of opening up our growing log cabin village as a winter wonderland venue to catch the Christmas market are gone for another year!
This seasons potting is nearly done with crates of Spring bulbs arriving and the early Erysimum crops in quarantine ready to do their winter growing. We have tried in the past to grow English Bluebells and snowdrops from autumn plantings without very much success so last spring we tried buying some 'in the green' plants and dropped them into large modules to see if they would fair better. Disappointingly they went dormant fairly quickly and showed little sign of growing, to the point where I nearly chucked the lot away. They have sat inert all summer in damp compost among all the other vigorous green stock looking very sad. This week was stocktaking week for the end of year records, so I was forced to bite the bullet and tip a few out to see if there was anything to salvage and much to my surprise there are strong fresh roots on almost everything so there may be a crop in the end after all. We had a few Wood Anemones in there too which were just spindly bits of root and even they are looking promising. Not quite sure how they will all perform once potted but there is now hope which is all I need.
The potting pressure over the last couple of months has kept us from keeping the nursery quite as perfect looking as we would like, but the next month or so should see a major tidy up as we get the time to catch up on all the chores. We have a few tunnel covers that have split over the summer and need replacing before the winter gets too wet and cold and a few more drains to dig in to collect up the excess rainfall as well as all the pot topping to suppress the moss and liverwort growth, so no rest for us just yet.
How is it that in the UK each person is buying an average of 26.7kg of clothing every year? When I think of how little I get through, someone else is really going to town to make up this average. Caroline has to wrestle my favourite stuff off me before I am forced to replace it. There were people being interviewed on the telly who struggled to think of anything in their wardrobe older than 12 months and that was a coat. Other than 'wearing parts' (undergarment basics) most of my collection must class as vintage in comparison, but luckily I'm not too fussed. I like to think if you buy quality and class it rarely dates, rather than the reality of, I'm beyond all fashion help, if it's comfy it'll get worn to death. Bring on the elasticated waistbands! Just thinking on this, my own favourite winter coat is a Fatface number I got in France in about 1990, Ok there are a couple of bits missing but it still does it for me.
Luckily we are not too busy on the phones at this time of year, as the ongoing phone issues have returned. We have narrowed it down now to a faulty base station which was probably the issue all along. It works ok on occasions, but needs rebooting every few hours to keep it on line. So apologies if you struggle to get through, do leave us a message if you get the chance, Hoping to get it sorted soon.
WOODEN BOX RETURNS
Thanks to everyone who has rustled together their boxes ready for return. We have a good number back here already, all cleaned and stacked to fully dry out, with loads of pallets already put away in the barn all set for sales to take off again next spring. We have a couple more trips out next week to hoover up the last big stacks and after that we will pop in if we are about to mop up anything you may still have for return. So keep in touch and let us know if you have a batch to go and we will try
and get round to you at some point.
Availability highlights
Viola Konigin Charlotte traditionally flowers in the spring with its deep violet colour and stunning scent, but we find it does produce a pretty smattering in the late summer too and sure enough that is what's occurring now. Looking and smelling great. The late summer flowering Anemones are still looking great in the gardens and we have some with bud coming.
We have a fresh batch of compact and chunky Leucathemum Banana Creme with strong bud showing. We have a fresh patch of Achillea Moonshine in bud on short stems with its attractive, silver leaves. Many of the Asters are in bud or flower. The massively popular Erigeron karvinskianus Stallone is still sprouting plenty of flower buds, full of promise and dainty
colours. If the weather is not too harsh we have had these still flowering at Christmas before now.
Foliage starts to be of interest at this time of year and there are some good shows of colour from the Brunnera variegata, Carex Evergold, Ajuga, Heuchera, Lamium and Euphorbia.
Have a good week from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Tuesday 2 October 2018

Clean and Hairy

Morning all,
Another lovely weekend after a great week. Bit nippy at night but glorious sunshine most days and we've had some stunning sunsets along the way. Make the most of it, it'll be dark by just after lunch all too soon!
The microprop lab is still knocking out some great young plants to prick out, which unfortunately has meant putting on the LED growlights for a few hours in the early morning and a bit of overnight heat too, so that the shock of the outside world isn't too much for the tender little things. Thankfully the media issues we had in the lab back in the spring seem to be behind us and most stock has made a strong recovery and looks better than ever. We are hoping that with a fair wind we can make up for this seasons shortages over the next 12 months, we have plenty of demand so it's heads down for a busy winter bulking up the numbers again. It's another one of those occasions where 'it'll be really good next year, just you see'. We've had a lot of those over the years and one day it'll come true.
We had our copy of 'Commercial Greenhouse Grower' arrive today with a big article covering the summer visit of the Herbaceous growers technical group we hosted. A nice positive piece with a couple of dodgy images including one of your truly looking very slim, thanks in a large part to a computer squeeze on the image to fit it all in!
Still busy potting, not too many to go, hoping to finish within a couple of weeks and then we can get stuck into all those other jobs waiting in the wings. We had a few more staff available last week which bumped up productivity and did gave me the opportunity to get stuck into some pre-winter chores. The main propagation/weaning tunnel has, by design, a really warm humid atmosphere which means green algae and liverwort growth tends to take over all surfaces over the summer. This effect is quite handy in the summer to provide a bit of shade but in the autumn and winter when any extra light is a bonus, something has to be done about it. So with stock levels temporarily low in there this week I clad myself from head to toe in an old spray suit to wash off the inside of the tunnel sheet. A bit of cleaner and water in a bucket with a brush on a stick, over a couple of afternoons did the trick. It was steamy work under the sun but at least it made being soaked from head to foot a bit more comfortable and the results are satisfyingly dramatic. It took a good shower to get me back into a socially acceptable condition but worth it.

Phones are back up and running now so if we miss your call this week you have probably called while we are having our morning break, lunchtime snack or afternoon siesta! It's all go.

WOODEN BOX RETURNS
If anyone is ready to send back their collection of empty wooden boxes please do let us know. Over the next week or two we would like to collect as many as we can, so we can get them out of your way and cleaned, dried and mended before the cold damp winter arrives. Thanks.

Availability highlights
Viola Konigin Charlotte traditionally flowers in the spring with its deep violet colour and stunning scent, but we find it does produce a pretty smattering in the late summer too and sure enough that is what's occurring now. Looking and smelling great. The late summer flowering Anemones are looking great in the gardens and we have some looking good now, some with bud coming. Anemones are always a tricky one as the natural tendency is for the plants to go tall. looks fab in the garden but not so easy in a pot. We have a fresh batch of compact and chunky Leucathemum Banana Creme with strong bud showing. We have a couple on fresh patches of Achillea in bud on short stems, the red Paprika and silver leaved Moonshine. Many of the Asters are in bud or flower.
The massively popular Erigeron karvinskianus Stallone is sprouting plenty of flower buds, full of promise and dainty colours. If the weather is not too harsh we have had these still flowering at Christmas before now.
Foliage starts to be of interest at this time of year and there are some good shows of colour from the Brunnera variegata, Carex Evergold, Ajuga, Heuchera, Lamium and Euphorbia.
Have a good week from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.