Too hot to pot

Hi,
Here comes summer again. A cracking bank holiday weekend in store for many, with possibly record temperatures again. Looks a bit too hot for me but getting back to more sensible levels in the following week.
Close to home things look ok, with several interesting nursery developments in the pipeline and the arrival and first run out of the bed cleaning beast, while further afield monstrous calamities are afoot with the glaciers disappearing and the Amazon basin apparently on fire. Then there is there is all the Brexit turmoil which I still have no real idea of what is really going on or how we are going to be affected. Hopefully it will all fall into place without too much upheaval in the end, but with the end of October only a matter of weeks away there is going to have to be some major strategy changes somewhere to get it sorted.
I am already struggling to cope with handling all the bigger stuff, it's beginning to get a bit too scary, so all I can sensibly do is focus on our little corner and try to encourage our rather weeny sphere of influence,
Celebratory cream bun on Monday evening after completing my CPC training, so I can continue to rescue Phil, our main driver, when he runs out of driving hours in the big van. All commercial drivers of vehicles over 3.5 t need to do this 35hrs of refresher training every 5 years to get there CPC driving card from the DVLA. 7 hours in the classroom feels way longer than the 12+ I spend on the nursery each day, but to be fair I did pick up a few useful bits of info over the five days. We now have new trucker road atlases with all the bridge heights and weights, just in case, and I now know that the number of rows of stitching on a racket strap denotes the weight capacity of the belt. Five stitched rows = 5 tonnes.
Thursday night saw the ITV Tonight programme take a look at the environmental impact of the plants sold in garden centres. I think there was some trade trepidation about how it might come across and although there were a few areas that where perhaps a little misleading, overall I thought it was reasonably balanced and in fact fairly muted in any level of criticism. There were plenty of chances throughout the programme for industry experts to explain what was changing which they did pretty well. For me things haven't got radical enough yet in our thought processes of how we consume so much stuff generally, but the mood is changing which is a big step in the right direction, and the acknowledgement that the consumer is looking for more a more environmentally positive experience is heartening. There wasn't enough time for them to look at the plastic use and waste in the now hugely busy catering side of the centres or the tonnes of disposable Christmas consumables that are about to invade the stores. Give me a gummed paper chain any day.
Hope you all have a good bank holiday. I am hoping for an afternoon off if I play my cards right. It's going to be too hot to pot!

Availability highlights
We have a few varieties of Phlox coming into bud after a late haircut, looking fresh, full of promise and not too tall. Rudbeckia Little Goldstar is now showing masses of bud and a hint of colour. We still sell lots of the taller classic Goldsturm which is a fabulous garden plant but Goldstar is dramatically shorter and neater. The neat little Erodiums are flowering well. Neat and tidy, they will flower for ages. Several Coreopsis varieties (Sunfire, Sunkiss and Illico) are showing great colour. A bright show with lots of flower to come. The classic summer flowering Montbretia (Crocosmia) all showing colour now with plenty of bud to still to open.
Yet another fresh batch of Erigeron Stallone is coming into colour, it just goes on and on. The two compact pretty pale yellow Leucanthemum's Banana Creme and Broadway Lights are looking stunning, very strong, lots of bud and showing good colour. Our mini Chrysanthemum (Garden Mums) are growing away well. Lovely bushy plants with lots of bud already showing and more to come. The odd splash of colour so far, they will soon be showing off nicely.
Geum Lady Stratheden and Mrs Bradshaw are putting up a nice flush of fresh flower. The short orange varieties Koi and Cooky are coming up with another batch of bud and flower.
Autumn must be on its way with a few Sedum in bud. We have trimmed them short to flower low, but the flowers are still going to make a great show. We have another fresh batch of the compact Verbena Lollipop in bud with a nice tidy splash of colour. Rhodanthemum Casablanca are showing well with bushy grey foliage and lots of bud and flower on show.
Have a great week from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.