Hairy Christmas

Happy Christmas Everyone,

I can't believe how time flies at this time of year. For us it is supposed to be the quiet time when we can catch up with all the jobs put on hold earlier in the year. Loads of time to update catalogues and labels and finalise the production ideas for the next season. To be fair we have caught up on a lot of plant work but it's now just over half way through the month and most of the outside staff have already broken up for the festive break and won't be back until next year. Most of the lab staff are in until the 23rd, because the plants just keep growing in there and we can't afford to leave them unattended for too long, but outside it is a good time for holiday allocations to be used up.

Most of the 'one off' winter jobs always seem to take so much longer to finish than I plan for, if you could identify any part of my management technique as planning. This week should have been an exciting one with the arrival of the new loo block, but that certainly didn't go to plan. The old block flew away a couple of weeks ago no problem, and we thought the new one would easily drop back into the same position. Over the previous week we tidied the site, laid new foundation pads and repositioned all the services to fit the new unit. Due at 12.00 on Tuesday, it got delayed a few hours and instead of being on a small HIAB lorry it arrived on a full length arctic. After a lot of shunting about it became apparent that it couldn't get close enough to the site to lift it into position, so it was dropped off on the track close by, for a two part lift. The cab detached from the trailer and drove round to the other side of the unit to lift it from there. By this time it was raining and pitch dark, which didn't make life any easier. The cab and crane unit still couldn't get close enough and when the lift got anywhere close to the correct site position, the alarms went off, so we gave up and left the unit blocking the farm track. Still, at least there are alarms on these things to reduce the danger of a mishap. Now I have had to hire in a bigger 60 ton crane to get the job done, which is coming on Monday at a fairly hefty cost. That's one half hour job that will have taken a day and dented the cash-flow.

Naturally the installation of the new computer last week went ahead without a hitch. Replacing your main unit, which holds most of the data, is bound to go well, after all they are all plug and play these days, aren't they. There goes another week. It's all good progress really and it will all set us up beautifully for the coming season and the hopefully a hectic sales run right through to the autumn again. Fingers crossed.

Our picnic Christmas lunch went brilliantly on Tuesday, absolutely delicious treats all boxed up for each participant plus some hot soup. Way too much for one meal for most of us, so many little hampers made their way home to supplement evening meals. Secret Santa gifts were opened and enjoyed (I got a fab woolly Mohican hat to remind me of days gone by!). Sadly we didn't find the time to make our long, socially distanced crackers, so there was a shortage of paper hats, but luckily the present wrapping doubling up nicely as temporary festive headwear. With a round of internet jokes and a couple of 'magic' tricks, a wild time was had by all!

Anyway, this will be my last weekly news update of a crazy year. Thanks so much for all the support we have had from so many directions over this rather traumatic period, and we wish everyone a happy, more optimistic and positive 2021. It's still going to be tough in the first few months, but at least there is now a strong light at the end of the tunnel. As an industry we have so much to look forward to, and hopefully the world will come out of this chaos with lots of other positive trends.

Have a good break and stay safe. 

Prices & catalogue for 2021

Very sorry, but the 2021 catalogue is not quite ready yet. The perennial range is expanding a bit but otherwise much will be the same as last year's issue. The prices will rise by about 2.5% (5p) which I am hoping will cover some of the cost increases we have seen. With a bit of luck a smoother sales season and increasing sales volumes will cover the rest.

Availability list highlights

The weather looks a bit miserable next week and we are hoping for a very quiet week on deliveries as we are a bit short staffed, but if you are desperate do let me know and we will do our best. We are all back on Monday 4th Jan so normal service should be in operation by then, assuming no extra Covid restrictions are put in place.

A nice range of Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have sold out of a couple of lines already but still have some great niger and orientalis on the list. The niger are budding up now.

We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum available now as well. Only a few ready at the moment but they will flower all winter and into the spring. Only available this year in a mixed colour range and only in limited numbers. Ajuga's are still looking nice, bold fresh foliage.

We have a good range of the evergreen Bergenia's in stock. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Those were the days. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy picnics

Hi Everyone,

Just a quick one as I'm pushed for time with all the pre-Christmas stuff going on. Lights are up in despatch and on the coffee shack, all looking very festive. Lashed out on some new light strings which have three colours in each LED bulb head. All programmable with infinite colour variations and patterns on the Wifi controls, very jolly and bright enough to see in daylight as well as at night. The usual Christmas pub lunch is off, so we have been organising something a bit different. We are still all having socially spaced breaks under the all the new little heaters in dispatch, so we have ordered fancy individual picnic boxes and mugs of hot soup for everyone. It's all coming from a local events catering company who are having to do a lot of thinking outside the picnic box to keep busy. We have quite a few long card tubes knocking about the nursery so we are working on a design for some 4ft crackers, so we can all really get in the mood on the day.

Meanwhile my nursery investment excitement continues, with the delivery of our first clicker press last week and a new computer coming on Monday. The new loo development took a major step forwards this week with the old unit being craned off site onto the back of a lorry. There were a few tense hours with everyone holding on until the arrival of the temporary block, especially as it was three hours late arriving! It ended up being unloaded in the dark and plumbed into all the necessary drains, water and power. Wrestling with refitting soil pipes and altering trenches in the drizzle under torchlight was not my favourite way to spend a winter evening, but luckily it all went fairly smoothly and normal services were soon returned. Hopefully the weather next week will be reasonably dry as we have to prepare the old site for the arrival of the new unit. Needless to say all the services and concrete foundation pads are in different positions, but is shouldn't take too long. The new unit arrives the following week and we will then be flush with available Covid safe facilities.

I hope all your Christmas sales are going well and your plans for the festive break are coming together. Ours programme has now gone so quiet I'm lining up some printing plate making and printing to occupy me, in an effort to get me off the sofa. I suspect the lure of the wood-burner, an entire turkey to eat by myself and all the mince pies might keep me on my back a bit more than I imagine, but it's always nice to feel I could be productive if I put my mind to it.

We are all getting quite excited about the plant selling prospects for 2021. Demand looks like it is going to be strong from an expanded consumer market, the centres hopefully will be open all season, UK plant suppliers are super popular at the moment and environmental awareness is still growing. We are expanding production to try and cope but like so many others it is all still a bit of a guessing game. We are so lucky to be in this position when so many other industries are still struggling, but at least if we do well we can create more work and jobs for others which must help.

Availability list highlights

A nice range of Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have sold out of a couple of lines already but still have some great niger and orientalis on the list, with plenty of bud and the odd open flower showing on the niger Avent Star. We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum available now as well. Only a few ready at the moment but they will flower all winter and into the spring. Only available this year in a mixed colour range and only in limited numbers.

Ajuga's are still looking nice, bold fresh foliage. We have a good range of the evergreen Bergenia's in stock. Watch out for the more unusual Dumbo which as it matures produces really big fleshy and rather hairy leaves, but this is a actually deciduous variety. The ever popular  Erigeron Stallone still has some bud on show and the odd open flower. They will often still be in colour at Christmas. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Those were the days. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy DIY

Hi Everyone,

Labels, labels, labels. So much background stuff going on in our efforts to be super ready for a busy spring, with labels this week being top of the list. I got my massive colour label order in nice and early this autumn thinking that was most of the hard work done on that front, but no, I forgot the next job of proof-reading the new ones that follows on. Not only that but because of the new plant passport formats being introduced, I have to proof-read the entire range! At least it is now a job I can do online and ask for any changes very easily on the screen. I made a start on Wednesday and quickly blew up the few remaining brain cells I have left, after seeing the scale of the job. One of the issues is that I like to make the most of opportunities and improve stuff whenever we can, and when I see a space on a label I want to fill it with extra useful info for the ultimate consumer. The number of these opportunities was bigger than I had realised, so I removed the toys from the pram and gave up. I contacted the label maker to see if they could adjust and expand the content for me, which they said they could do, but it would result in a significant delay in the timing of the delivery. Ouch. So after a quick discussion, I came to terms with the fact that if we wanted it done we had to do the additional work ourselves and get it done fairly snappily, so production didn't get delayed. Once that decision was made it actually helped me mentally. The realisation that if we wanted to make the best of the labels, we just had to bite the bullet and get on with it, all the doubt and angst was taken out of the equation and revitalised those last few remaining brain cells. The result is that most other work has gone on hold for a few days, while we battle through the mire. Luckily Boris has helped out a bit by sticking the whole of Hampshire into Tier 2 and scuppering the short break with friends to sunny St Ives we had booked for the end of Lockdown2. That has given us several extra free days to sort things out and I can't say I was that surprised. With the vaccines on the way there is plenty of light at the end of the tunnel, we just have to be extra careful until then, all sensible stuff really.

All the above fun will delay the production of our 2021 online catalogue, but I will endeavour to get a summary one out very soon, just so you can see all the latest stuff, new varieties and prices for the coming season. There will be a modest price rise of approx 2.5% (5p per pot) which technically won't cover the many cost increases incurred over the year (7% wage increase to mention just one), but with the increased consumer demand and site investments helping our efficiency and reducing waste, we should be ok. I know there could well be challenges with stock shortages across the trade again in the coming season, bearing in mind the extra consumer demand, centres being open during the peak season, Brexit challenges, recovery from disrupted nursery production and potential propagation limitations. In theory the law of supply and demand could allow us to increase by a lot more, and I know some suppliers have spotted an opportunity to do this, but we are in this for the long haul and we would rather be fair than opportunistic with our customers and steer a steadier course. If this doesn't work we may have to adjust prices more next year, but I am ever hopeful it will all be ok in the end.

In my 'spare time' I have been researching 'click presses' which I never even knew existed before this week. I am looking at pressing out our own labels and possibly the header boards, with die cutters so that we can take advantage of printing all our marketing POS on completely plastic free materials. Most of our POS is already plastic free, but an annoying and stubborn last few bits remain. Current suppliers are not in a position to do it for us at the moment, yet the materials are out there to use. The problem seems to be that there isn't yet enough demand for them to try very hard to change their production set up, to supply us. Anyway it all looks quite promising and I'm hoping to make a few more small investments to kick off some trials to see if we can make it work. I can already see some more opportunities for efficiency savings in the future coming out of this, in both materials and labour use, but it is very early days and I am pretty used to grand ideas falling down, so don't hold your breath.

There may be a theme appearing in this missive. If a jobs worth doing, do it yourself. 

Availability list highlights

A nice range of Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have sold out of a couple of lines already but still have some great niger and orientalis on the list with some bud showing on the niger.

We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum available now as well. Only a few ready at the moment but they will flower all winter and into the spring. Only available this year in a mixed colour range and only in limited numbers. Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage.

We have a nice range of the evergreen Bergenia's in stock. Watch out for the more unusual Dumbo which as it matures produces really big fleshy and rather hairy leaves, but this is a actually deciduous variety.

The ever popular Erigeron Stallone with bud on show and the odd open flower. They will often still be in colour at Christmas. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Those were the days.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy labels

Hi Everyone,

Considering this is supposed to be the quiet time of the year, we are madly busy, the time just flies by. Not so much on the orders front, although we do have some lovely Helleborus, including some of the niger varieties with flower and bud, a few little hardy Cyclamen in flower and some evergreens still looking smart. With the lack of really cold weather even quite a few of the herbs are looking pretty fresh too. Anyway I'm not particularly looking to sell much at this time of year, this is the time for all the spring preparations. Another two tunnels had their drains installed last week, despatch had a curtain vent replaced and lots of bark mulch got laid to get those weeds under control around the tunnel edges, We managed a few hours potting on one of the chillier damp days, just to get a few freshly lifted strawberries potted, a chance to try out our new little IR heaters in a real world situation. They worked perfectly, not too hot but a lot more comfortable. At only 600W each and with them all individually controlled by thermostat and motion detectors, they hardly made a dent on the electric consumption for the day (yes, I record the meter reading every morning!), plus it was windy enough to be covered by the turbines, so happy people all round. I wonder if the potting tunnel and despatch area will suddenly become a much more attractive places to work now! I know it's not exactly world shattering high tech stuff, but for us this whole development is quite a radical change. The team working on the nursery have never had the luxury of heat before, other than in the staff rooms at break-time and in the loos. It was a nuts amount to install, but the running costs should be easily manageable and hopefully a more comfortable work environment will help boost both morale and output, we'll see.

I am currently fine tuning the pot label designs for next season. The colour labels all need updating, by Floramedia, with the new UK plant passport info and we have quite a few new varieties added too. Our own herb printing plates will all need to be remade to include the new format, so I have started on the graphics to change all those, that's going to take quite a few days even before I start etching the plates and start the printing itself. On the bright side we have started the process a few weeks earlier than last year, so it shouldn't be quite so much of a panic this time. I am still waiting to hear from our plant health inspector to see if we will be give some leeway to use up the EU style label stock within the UK, or if we will have to over stick them (again), the decision hasn't been made yet as far as they know.

We now are set up with an import/export agent account, but the VAT deferment account application is still ongoing. We are making ground, even if we are still not really quite sure what is going on! Now the plants and labels for the spring are organised I was able to turn my efforts this week to trying to remove the last of the plastic ingredients from our marketing package. We have been pushing our suppliers for ages, for non-plastic replacements of the header board sticky labels, the header board waterproofing coating and the sheets of blank pot labels that we print ourselves for those small batches of plants which don't have a Floramedia label. It didn't go very well, the brakes have been applied to quite a few projects due to the covid disruption, so I'm having a rethink on how we do these things. I can get hold of A4 sheets of the Floramedia B500 label material, and I can print directly onto these through our OKI printer, but I can't get them pre-cut so that they pop out of the sheet after printing. I trialled the B500 card in a tray all last winter, spring and summer, mocked up as a header board and it lasted really well, so there may be an opportunity there to redesign that part and print directly onto the board, rather than onto a sticky label first. This has led to a major trawl of the internet into the realms of die cutting, of which I knew nothing about. Live and learn.

Oh yes, I blew the budget on a new/replacement van this week. The same design as last year's new Fiat, which has a bigger payload than the Peugeot we are replacing, and is so easy to load. Sadly the electric version only has a short range, as well as being more than twice the price, but perhaps next time. Delivery won't be until the spring, but looking forward to its arrival already, when hopefully a lot more other stuff will be returning to closer to normal.

Availability list highlights

A nice range of Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have sold out of a couple of lines already but still have some great niger and orientalis on the list with some bud showing on the niger. Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage.

We have a nice range of the evergreen Bergenia's in stock. Watch out for the more unusual Dumbo which as it matures produces really big fleshy and rather hairy leaves, but this is a actually deciduous variety. The ever popular Erigeron Stallone with bud on show and the odd open flower. They will often still be in colour at Christmas. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Those were the days.

We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum available now as well. Only a few ready at the moment but they will flower all winter and into the spring. Only available this year in a mixed colour range and only in limited numbers. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy Prep

 Hi Everyone,

An excellent week on the winter prep of lots of plants out there and still bowling along on the site projects. The weather was with for most of the week, so there is just the Frankenstein tunnel to recover now, which will have to wait until we have installed the new lab store. Everything else is covered and dry ready to keep the worst of the weather off the crops over the winter. We are going to have to remove a door lintel to slide the new lab store (refitted shipping container) into position as it is frustratingly about a foot too tall to get under the door frame, then we can get the new cover on. Not a mistake this time, it was all in the master plan, honest. Both twin skin tunnels are now inflated and the fan on only half the time. Result.

This is the time of year when I try to find the time to decide on what plants to grow for next year, how many and how to schedule them. With over 600 varieties and multiple deliveries of each, it is a mind bending task that needs a lot of thinking about. That then leads into sorting out the perennial colour label order so that the printers (Floramedia) have time to get it all sorted by the start of the new season. They have to secure the starch waterproofed card for the job, which is still only made in quite small batches. Having our holiday cut short has helped hugely and I am a week or two ahead of last year, which will hopefully bode well for having everything in place, although you just never know what is round the corner.

Once these key orders are finalised I can get on with updating the online catalogue for 2021. I know it's all a bit late in the year but we'll get there. There are quite a few new varieties on the perennial side of things as well as bigger volumes to contend with, 2021 looks like an exciting year for us as we try to guess how things will go.

Early indications on demand for next season are looking like we will need all that extra stock, we are already turning away potential new customers who are just too far away for us to sustainably service and deliver to. In the past when sales have been tougher we have spread our net a little wider than we would have liked, but we are never 100% comfortable with that approach as we know it is so much more difficult to maintain our levels of service, achieve sensibly quick box returns, keep delivery costs down and keep that carbon footprint as small as we can.

It looks pretty chaotic on the plant importation front at the moment. There are lots of helpful adverts from the government urging us to get ready, but we are having a really difficult time tying down exactly what we need to do. Luckily many of our young plant suppliers have a UK nursery base to distribute from, which means we avoid a lot of the hassle of any VAT deferment payments, paperwork, phytosanitary certificates etc. It will all come at a cost to us eventually and there will still be some imports where we have to do all or part of it ourselves. We are on the way with setting up an import agent and getting a VAT deferment account in place, although the forms are pretty daunting and the time lag is quite long before anything seems to happen. It's been three weeks since the deferment account form went in and nothing back yet. It also looks like we are going to have to set up with a multiple number of agents as many importers seem to be arranging agents themselves, so that they are sure their entire load has everything in place before it passes through the docks. Luckily we don't have any plants coming in very early in the year so hopefully many of the wrinkles will be ironed out by the time they are due in.

That's not the end of the extra hassle, when the plants arrive here we now have to seal the plants off from all other stock so that the Plant Health Inspectors can come and clear them for use. We can only do this if we have declared ourselves a Point of Destination and registered the import on the Peach government website in advance of its arrival. The form for registering as a POD needs the deferment account details, so we are currently marginally stuffed on that application too! Still no EU trade agreement sorted either so that helps add to the pile of unknowns. Fingers crossed all the plants I ordered will arrive. 

Wooden box returns

We have visited most of you now and collecting up our wooden boxes as this crazy season slows up for the autumn andmwinter. If you still have boxes needing collection please do drop me a line and we will try and get to you. We may not pick up every last box by the end of autumn, just as long as we have most of them.

Availability list highlights

A nice range of Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have sold out of a couple of lines already but still have some great niger and orientalis on the list with some bud showing on the niger. Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage.

We have a nice range of the evergreen Bergenia's in stock. Watch out for the more unusual Dumbo which as it matures produces really big fleshy and rather hairy leaves, but this is a actually deciduous variety.

The ever popular Erigeron Stallone with bud on show and the odd open flower. They will often still be in colour at Christmas. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Those were the days.

We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum available now as well. Only a few ready at the moment but they will flower all winter and into the spring. Only available this year in a mixed colour range and again in limited numbers.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy breaks

 Hi Everyone,

That was a hectic couple of weeks at this end. Electricians fixing up all the new heating and lighting kit in despatch and the potting tunnel, among lots of other site activity, digging trenches, mending machines and some unexpected extras. Two weeks ago activity was intensified as Caroline and I prepared to go on our annual holiday to sunny Cornwall. Getting everything lined up for a break always takes longer than expected and this time was no different. It didn't help that three more tunnels split their covers as the temperature fell away and I had to order some replacements. Packing for the break itself got a bit rushed in the end and despite copious lists we still managed to forget most of the food for the couple of eat-in meals planned early in the break. Not a problem really as not only did Cornwall have plenty of veg on offer, but we were home by Wednesday anyway, after the lockdown announcement caught us out. A bit of a disappointment after such a hectic year, we were looking forward to a change of scene and pace, but we still packed in plenty of treats over the few days we were there, so it really does feel like we have had a break. Assuming things relax in December we are going to try again, fingers crossed. 

Coming back so quickly I thought everything would be pretty much the same, but as usual everyone seems to get on better when I'm not here and lots of jobs have either been finished or are well under way. The lovely weather helped I think. Several orders got delivered and we picked up most of the remainder of our wooden boxes, the electricians have all but finished, two tunnels were recovered with the third ready to roll. The upgrading of the Frankenstein tunnel (don't ask) to an all slab floor is nearly complete and its side curtain vent and netting removed, re-timbered and replaced. Anyone visiting the nursery will be pleased to hear that we have put up new tunnel location signs on all the tunnels, inside and out, so you (and we) can find the plants more easily. Over time the signs gradually disappear and it's only when you are standing in a tunnel and think, 'where am I?', which is happening a lot now, that you realise you can't tell. One tunnel looks like another from the inside. All in all a very productive week.

Still lots of winter projects to do though, and next week looks promising with a mild dryish few days coming up. Excitingly (it doesn't take much) I fitted the connecting pipe this morning between the existing twin skinned prop tunnel and the new twin skin cover on the frost protected tunnel. The little fan we have should in theory have enough puff to inflate both, providing there are not too many leaks round the edges, time will tell. We can stick up a few leaks easily enough but just need to be careful not to do too good a job in case a cover goes pop! Hoping to make a start on remaking all the herb printing plates with the new UK plant passport details on it, replacing all the new plates I made last year for the new EU scheme! Once made I can gt started on printing a good stock of labels ready for the spring rush. It's all go.

Natural Energy are coming in to do our annual wind turbine service this week if it's not too windy. We've had a good year on output so far, the best yet, although there is still time for a lull in the weather to knock it back, you just never know. December and January are on average the windiest months so it doesn't take many still days to upset the average and fall behind. As we add more electric equipment on the site I keep thinking consumption will go up but we are currently on our lowest annual usage since starting accurate recording in 2008 (over 40% lower than then). The new despatch heaters will definitely increase consumption in 2021, but it will be cheap energy as we are producing most of it ourselves and the improvement in working conditions should be well worth it.

Wooden box returns

We have visited most of you now and collecting up our wooden boxes as this crazy season slows up for the autumn and winter. The barn is full of cleaned, repaired and mostly dried trays all ready for 2021 sales to get going again. If you still have boxes needing collection please do drop me a line and we will try and get to you. We may not pick up every last box by the end of autumn, just as long as we have most of them.

Availability list highlights

A nice range of Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have sold out of a couple of lines already but still have some great niger and orientalis on the list with some bud showing on the niger already. Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage.

We have a nice range of the evergreen Bergenia's in stock. Watch out for the more unusual Dumbo which as it matures produces really big fleshy and rather hairy leaves, but this is a actually deciduous variety. As the time moves on we are well into Aster season. Only a few varieties left now.

The ever popular Erigeron Stallone with bud on show and the odd open flower. They will often still be in colour at Christmas. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Those were the days.

We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum available now as well. Only a few ready at the moment but they will flower all winter and into the spring. Only available this year in a mixed colour range and again in limited numbers.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy Heating

Hi Everyone,

The longer the year goes on the more there seems to be to do. What happened to everything slowing up? I know sales have slowed, although still at record levels for the time of year, and the potting is just about done but the list of jobs to get done just gets longer and longer. Just wondering if I might have been a bit over ambitious with the number of winter projects we have taken on this year, it all looked so simple on paper, but time is rushing by and its November in a week's time already. Holidays are being taken so team numbers are a bit down and the weather has delayed us a bit on some jobs. It seems to be an increasing priority to get the drainage sorted out after another week of on and off heavy downpours, but the difficult access means most of the trench digging is by hand and wheelbarrow so if it gets too sticky it becomes impossible. I must admit we are gradually winning this battle, there are only the occasional flooded tunnels now and most are draining away again quite quickly if they do get swamped, but whenever I see a flood I want to get the trench dug asap, then I see another, then it rains again. Best to go away and think of something else. It will take time but we'll get there one tunnel at a time.

Electricians arrived this week to start on the despatch upgrade. That caused more chaos, as we had to clear areas in there that hadn't seen the light of day for years, but at least it opened up the whole area and we could see even more potential for improvement. They hung up one of the overhead infra red heaters just to see how they performed and sort out the best position etc. Everything about the heaters is subtle, they are small, unobtrusive, silent, emit no light and use only a tiny amount of energy (600w each). Unsurprisingly they also emitted very little heat! After the initial panic that all that money wasn't going to do the main job, we lowered the position, so it was just a little ahead of you and a couple of feet above head height then suddenly the glow of radiant heat was nicely felt. Not too warm that it would feel too cold moving away, but warm enough to be more comfortable on those cold winter and early spring days when we are busy preparing the orders. The real test will be when it is properly cold, but I am hoping for sensible benefits, but with low running costs. Each individual work station heater has its own motion detector so it will only turn on when someone is in position and a master thermostatic switch will turn them all off when the general air temperature reaches an acceptable level. Being radiant heaters they don't heat the air itself, so the warm glow returns straight away after any sudden door opening event. Luckily our wind turbines electricity output is at its peak in the winter and early spring, so each unit used will only cost us 6-8p. With new PIR controlled LED lights in despatch, the store tunnel and the 'trolley park' tunnel, we will be both efficient and safer, no more rummaging around in the dark for light switches or loading vans and trolleys in the murk. The potting tunnel is getting the same treatment later.

The old loo block is booked for removal in late November and a temporary unit lined up to rent, while we prepare the ground and connect up the new one, so that is all go. The new lab store container should be with us in early December so we'll need to prepare for that too. Good job there's nothing else to do.

Couldn't believe it but the drive chain broke again on the potting machine, a small brush mount had come loose, dropped into the compost and jammed up the rotating stirrer. There was a big bang as the chain snapped and all stopped. Had to dig out every last bit of compost before finding the offending part jammed into its new home. What fun, but actually quite a relief to find the cause none-the-less. New chain next week. We can't complain we haven't got plenty to do, we are the lucky ones. 

Wooden box returns

We have made a good start on collecting up our wooden boxes as this crazy season slows up for the autumn and winter. The barn is filling really quickly with cleaned, repaired and dried trays all ready for 2021 sales to get going again. We are a week or two later than usual starting this task, due to the volume of sales still going on, but if you haven't heard from us yet and have a collection ready to be picked up please do drop me a line.

Availability list highlights

Fresh Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have niger and orientalis on the list with some bud showing on the niger already. Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage. We have a nice range of the evergreen Bergenia's in stock. Watch out for the more unusual Dumbo which as it matures produces really big fleshy and rather hairy leaves, but this is a actually deciduous variety.

As the time moves on we are well into Aster season. Only a few varieties left now. The ever popular Erigeron Stallone with bud on show and the odd open flower. They will often still be in colour at Christmas. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Those were the days. We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum available now as well. Only the first few ready at the moment but they will flower all winter and into the spring. Only available this year in a mixed colour range and again in limited numbers. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy Wheelbarrows

Hi Everyone,

Big week for wheelbarrows on the nursery. We are approaching the busiest time for wheelbarrow use as most of the team will shortly be taking off to the tunnels, to initially top the compost in all of the pots with bark to slow up the liverwort and moss growth which can take over during the winter, if we are now vigilant, and then cutting all the deciduous plants back once they die back. Everyone needs at least one wheelbarrow and finding one can become a bit of a battle. I'm hoping that an extravagant splash out on several new ones and several replacement frames will bring so many back into circulation, we won't know what to do with them all. Deposit is paid on the new loo block and the electricians are due to start work on the new lights and heating in despatch and the potting tunnel. It's all go.

The bulb potting is all but finished, just a couple of hours to go which is a relief. It always takes so much longer than you think especially when compared with the throughput we achieve when potting single plants. Normally we would surround the potting machine with lots of helping hands to get them all counted and placed in the pots super quick, but with social distancing in place we had to restrict the numbers in there. With long polycarbonate screens and divides in place over machine and conveyor belt we managed to get a couple of extras in there, while keeping them safe, but it's not the same. Quite pleased with the screens though which hang on chains from the roof. They seemed a little like overkill because there is plenty of room to keep apart in there normally, but it is difficult to always keep your distance when you are focussed on getting a job done. The screens reduce that occasional closer proximity but are not too much in the way and are adjustable in position, to accommodate different potting tasks . I suspect we will have to adapt them a bit as we go, but they just help reduce the overall risk which is the main aim.

Nursery drain improvements continued this week with another two tunnels protected from the flooding with new drains dug down their entire length, drainage pipe installed and gravel laid. Four lovely new small bunkers have been installed around the site, to empty the bulk bark bags into, making filling all those wheelbarrows so much easier. It is great to do some positive improvements around the place when the news generally is not terribly uplifting.

Talking of fun things to do, I have added another job to the list for this winter. The new format plant passports introduced last winter, are changing again. The paperwork should be fairly straight forward to update, but I am going to have to make another full set of printing plates for all the herbs (etched steel plates) so we can print the right info on each label. Ace. I'm hoping we will be given a little bit of leeway on using up last year's formatted labels for the perennials, otherwise it will be another winter of over-sticking the old passport details with the new, on about 200,000 labels. The main changes are the removal of the EU flag, changing the plant passport issuer number to just a number (no GB on that bit) and change the wording of the words 'Plant Passport' to 'UK Plant Passport'. I had tried to pre-empt the change last winter by including a version with the UK flag on my plate etching but I guessed wrong, there is no flag at all, and I failed to guess the other changes. 

Wooden box returns

We have made a good start on collecting up our wooden boxes as this crazy season slows up for the autumn and winter. The barn is filling really quickly with cleaned, repaired and dried trays all ready for 2021 sales to get going again. We are a week or two later than usual starting this task, due to the volume of sales still going on, but if you haven't heard from us yet and have a collection ready to be picked up please do drop me a line.

Availability list highlights

Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage. Fresh batch of Scabious Butterfly Blue looking good with buds appearing. We have a nice range of the evergreen Bergenia's in stock. Watch out for the more unusual Dumbo which as it matures produces really big fleshy and rather hairy leaves, but this is a actually deciduous variety. It will lose its leaves in a few weeks before re-growing in the spring with a flush of pale pink flowers preceding the fresh new leaves.

As the time moves on we are well into Aster season. Only a few varieties left now. The ever popular Erigeron Stallone with bud on show with the odd open flower. In our garden they will often still be showing colour at Christmas. Fresh Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have niger and orientalis on the list with some bud showing on the niger already. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Those were the days.

Cyclamen hederifolium on the list again this week. Not too many left but most of the flower has passed now. We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum available now as well. Only the first few ready at the moment but they will flower all winter and into the spring. Only available this year in a mixed colour range and again in limited numbers.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy developments

Hi Everyone,

A bit drier all round this week, but wetter too! We had a couple of downpours which tested the drains again (passed) and we got the irrigation up and running after the excitement of last week. I lashed out, upgrading the storage tank and pump fittings to all stainless steel and the short flexible delivery pipe, to a 2 inch reinforced rubber version. All much more expensive than the existing set up, which was a combination of galvanised (rusting) iron, plastic and a very rigid but, in theory flexible, spiralled delivery hose. The spirals ran inside the pipe too, so it was almost impossible to seal and when plastic fittings meet metal it isn't always a good match, especially as you can't tighten the plastic as much as you would like. Anyway the fittings where lovely, strong and shiny and the hose, massively over specified, but exactly what I wanted, so well worth the extravagance. It went together like a dream with not a drip in sight, other than possibly the fitter!

We are looking to make a few changes round the nursery on the back of having to get ourselves more Covid safe for the winter. The old loos are on the way out, to make way for a new set of 8, with individual doors to the outside world. Let's hope the drains are up to it. It seemed a big price to pay to cope with a possibly short term problem, but we love the extra benefits we gain. PIR led lights, lots of insulation, lots of basins, more space, efficient heaters, easy clean surfaces, self closing doors, automatic ventilation and hopefully more a pleasurable, convenient and efficient use of everyone's time. It is a specialist local company building the unit, so we are getting cash back into the economy too.

We are also having a refresh of our despatch area and potting tunnel to provide a spaced out heated area, for people to have their breaks in some comfort. Our usual arrangement of huddling together round a couple of heaters in a small stuffy insulated rooms is the last place we would feel comfortable in now, so a new way had to be found. Despatch is a light, airy and open area, where, while the weather is warm enough, we often have our breaks, so an upgrade here was the only sensible option. Local electricians are coming in to completely overhaul the system, installing small suspended low power infra-red radiant heaters over each individual workstation. Several overriding controls will keep power use to a minimum, like PIR sensors so each one will only turn on when someone is under it. It is bound to increase energy use, but we export a lot of our power from the turbines in the winter, which gives us a return of less than 5p a unit, so the real cost will be manageable. Some payback over the years in extra output in such a 'happy and cosy' workspace might help too, fingers crossed.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of good news about at the moment but I have just heard about the new government 'Green Homes Grant Scheme' for domestic homes (announced this week), which could be useful to anyone looking to bump up their environmental performance. You can get a grant of two thirds of the cost of certain home improvements, up to a maximum of £5,000, but you will need to be quick as it has a limited total fund and when it's gone it stops. 

Wooden box returns

We have made a good start on collecting up our wooden boxes as this crazy season slows up for the autumn and winter. The barn is filling really quickly with cleaned, repaired and dried trays all ready for 2021 sales to get going again. We are a week or two later than usual starting this task, due to the volume of sales still going on, but if you haven't heard from us yet and have a collection ready to be picked up please do drop me a line.

Availability list highlights

Last few Verbena Lollipop with plenty of colour but not too big. Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage. Fresh batch of Scabious Butterfly Blue looking good with buds appearing. We have a nice range of the evergreen Bergenia's in stock. Watch out for the more unusual Dumbo which as it matures produces really big fleshy and rather hairy leaves, but this is a actually deciduous variety. It will lose its leaves in a few weeks before re-growing in the spring with a flush of pale pink flowers preceding the fresh new leaves.

Strong batch of Nepeta Walkers Low back on the list. As the time moves on we shift into Aster season. Only a few varieties left now. Healthy chunky stock most with buds showing. The ever popular Erigeron Stallone with bud on show but no colour showing just yet. In our garden they will often still be showing colour at Christmas. Fresh Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have niger and orientalis on the list now with some bud showing on the niger already.

Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Those were the days. A few Tiarella have pushed out another flush of flower, but very few plants in stock. More in the spring. Cyclamen hederifolium on the list again this week. Not too many left. We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum on the list now as well. Only the first few ready at the moment but they will flower all winter and into the spring. Only available this year in a mixed colour range and again in limited numbers.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Wet and Hairy

Hi Everyone, 

Bit of a washout down here. The last few days have been extremely wet, close to a month's worth of rain in 3 days and a lot more to come over the next couple of days. We are only half way through refurbishing the drains but I'm glad to say they have done a pretty good job so far. They have struggled to cope during the heaviest of deluges but once the rainfall eases a bit the floods are clearing quite quickly, which will save a lot of damage. There is still quite a bit to do, but it is encouraging to see some positive results already.

On the opposite side of the equation, where we are trying to add water rather than take it away, the irrigation pumps have been a nightmare this week. I had noticed that our electric use had picked up a bit in the last few days and put it down to the extra LED's in the prop unit we have just started using again as the days shorten. However a trip into the pump shed told the true story, our variable speed pumps were continually running, alternately accelerating and slowing, which is definitely not right when I knew the irrigation was off. The meter was turning correctly one minute then running backward the next (we are not directly joined to the mains, the reverse running would push the water back into our storage tank). Phoned the pump company, who of course had never heard of such a thing happening before and helpfully suggested we got a local water engineer in to have a look. Hero Rod arrived and we had a play with all the valves etc to see if we could see what was actually happening. I turned off the main gate-valve from the tank to the pumps which confirmed the backflow issue into the tank. We will need to install a non-return valve to prevent this and that should cure the issue. Spoke to the pump set makers and they confirmed that each pump had its own NRV and perhaps one had failed. Now you would think that was the issue sorted, but life is never that simple here. I tried to reopen the main gate-valve and it just went round and round in my hand, it had also broken! Now, to get the gate valve off means emptying the tank, which we couldn't do because the valve was stuck shut. Greg and I dismantled the top of the valve (in full waterproof kit) and took the top off, no problem, but the gate itself was still stuck in position, preventing the water flow. Next I pulled the gate out with some grips and the contents of the 2 inch pipe with 80 cubic meters of water behind it, erupted vertically getting into every nook and cranny! Luckily the volume of water now inside my waterproof suit warmed up pretty quickly so it wasn't too uncomfortable at that point. To stem the flow I just had to fit the top of the valve back on, without the gate, so I leapt back into the fountain and managed to screw it back on. Slightly hysterical by this point, we were feeling quite smug at having overcome this hurdle, until I looked into the pump shed to find the whole thing under about 4 inches of water with my coat and boots floating around. I stood in there wondering where it had all come from, there was no sign of cascades or fountains but I did eventually spot the end of a hose under the water which had been left open during the earlier testing. Shed is now dry, the tank is emptying and the parts are ready to install once the rain holds off. As always I'm sure the installation will go smoothly without any hitches.

Availability list highlights

Salvia nemerosa varieties are still showing some good colour. Particularly good this week are fresh plants showing colour of Blue Marvel and Compact Caradonna. Fresh batch of Scabious Butterfly Blue looking good with buds appearing.

Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage. Strong batch of Nepeta Walkers Low back on the list. As the time moves on we shift into Aster season. Only a few varieties left now. Healthy chunky stock most with buds showing. Last few Verbena Lollipop with plenty of colour but not too big. The ever popular Erigeron Stallone with bud on show but no colour showing just yet. In our garden they will often still be showing colour at Christmas.

Fresh Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have niger and orientalis on the list now as well as a few of the larger argutifolius. Some bud showing on the niger already. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Those were the days. Sedum Autumn Joy are in bud. Classic late summer flowering and so good for the bees, trimmed back earlier to produce nice short plants. Munstead Dark Red are nearly there too

A few Tiarella have pushed out another flush of flower, but very few plants in stock. More in the spring. The sharp sighted among you might spot the Cyclamen hederifolium on the list this week. We had trouble getting the young plants this summer so we only have very limited numbers available so please don't order too many, we will probably have to restrict supply to make it fair for all. We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum very soon, which flowers all winter and into the spring, although only available this year in a mixed colour range and again in limited numbers.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy Autumn

 Hi Everyone,

That was a fun packed week. The weather went from high summer to the depths of autumn in a few days, the sales were huge (for the time of year) and the nursery chores bowled along, all at the same time. I can't believe we got so much done in just one week.

I could see on the forecast that we had just a day and a half to try and get the tunnel sheets replaced in good conditions. Due to being surprisingly organised and prepared, we got 3 fixed on Monday and two on Tuesday morning, before the wind really got up. It was a bit of a gamble taking off the sheets in advance last week, but it paid off to everyone's relief, we made it by about an hour. We have just one to go now and that one needs a lot more preparation with replacement rotten wood, wind-up side curtain and a double sheeted cover to fit. It is the first time we will have our frost protected tunnel double skinned. The long life of the sheets and long term heat savings should cover the extra initial, cost fingers crossed. We are going to keep it inflated by fitting a tube to the next door tunnel skin (properly warm and led lit, propagation tunnel) which already has an inflated double skin. The same fan can then keep both inflated, as long as we have a good enough seal along all the sheet edges. Needing to make it a good fit, adds to the pressure on all sides!

The main potting season for the spring crops is drawing to a close, although not without its own drama. With about two days work to do the machine died again. The variable speed drive belt gave up, very worn and stretched it has had a good run, just a shame it wouldn't last another few days. Ordered up another one and got it fitted quick smart. Restarted the machine and a bar on the old stretched and slack conveyor lift chain caught, there was a big bang and a different drive chain snapped. Ace. That left us three chains to replace, the snapped little one and the two big lift chains. Spent all day with two of us in the machine, removing all the lift bars, cutting off the old chains and replacing with new. Frustrating at the time but a good job done in the end. Better to complete it all now rather than in the busy spring. Running like a new machine now, with everything tight and greased up it has lost all the clanking and wheezing of the past few months, that is unless I'm working on the team. Lots of planning going on at the moment, trying to organise a few winter projects to get the nursery running super smoothly in preparation for a hopefully very busy spring and summer 2021. Every year we seem to find another set of improvements to make to try and add even more efficiency to the production cycle. We have to try and squeeze that little bit extra out of the process each year. With labour rates up by over 7% since last winter, it is vital that we try to absorb as much of the extra cost as we can, especially as last year nearly the entire price rise we put in place, was spent on implementing the updated plant passport scheme. Good job this season has been such plain sailing!

Availability list highlights

Sorry if we are a bit short on colour, we would love to have had more available but sales over the last few weeks have been so much higher than usual at this time of year, that we have been slightly caught out!

Salvia nemerosa varieties are showing colour nicely. Particularly good this week are fresh plants showing colour of Blue Marvel and Compact Caradonna. Fresh batch of Scabious Butterfly Blue looking good with buds appearing. Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage. Strong batch of Nepeta Walkers Low back on the list. As the time moves on we shift into Aster season. Only a few varieties left now. Healthy chunky stock most with buds showing. A new crop of Verbena Lollipop are ready, plenty of colour but not too big.

The ever popular Erigeron Stallone with bud on show but no colour showing just yet. In our garden they will often still be showing colour at Christmas. Fresh Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have niger and orientalis on the list now as well as a few of the larger argutifolius. Some bud showing on the niger already. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Sedum Autumn Joy are in bud. Classic late summer flowering and so good for the bees, trimmed back earlier to produce nice short plants. Munstead Dark Red are nearly there too

A few Tiarella have pushed out another flush of flower, but very few plants in stock. More in the spring. The sharp sighted among you might spot the Cyclamen hederifolium on the list this week. We had trouble getting the young plants this summer so we only have very limited numbers available so please don't order too many, we will probably have to restrict supply to make it fair for all. We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum very soon, which flowers all winter and into the spring, although only available this year in a mixed colour range and again in limited numbers.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy and Windy

Hi Everyone,

Not everything goes according to plan does it. Although the weather was bright and warm as expected, the main task of the week was abandoned when my polytunnel covers didn't get here until Wednesday, coinciding with a massive pick up in wind speeds. We've had our windiest days of the month so far, since their arrival, good for the turbines but not so good for my plans to re-sheet. Also on Wednesday, to add insult to injury the potting machine died again. It has been worked pretty hard this summer so we have to expect some gremlins to make an appearance every now and then, The variable speed belt gave up so we lost all drive and added a rather rubbery aroma to the air. Managed to track down a replacement after several hours on line and missed the delivery slot for 'next day, by a couple of minutes. An offer of midday delivery today would get us set up for a good start to next week, but the carrier said we weren't in when they tried to deliver (I haven't been out for weeks!), so we now won't get it until Monday. Ace.

Anyway, every cloud has a silver lining and all that, and we ended up getting stuck into the nursery drainage recovery project and that went brilliantly. Several blocked channel drains and silt traps were cleared out and the first section of the gravel filled drainage ditch was emptied, relined and refilled. We enlarged the ditch and used a tough but more permeable fabric than before, which should keep the silt from clogging everything up, and let the water through more quickly, making it better able to cope with those torrential downpours we seem to be experiencing more of. We used my new trommel (rotating sieve) to clean the gravel so we could reuse it and I must say it worked a treat. A very worthwhile and satisfying purchase.

As we get towards the end of the season I can safely report that we are going to be fine for next year. Ongoing record hairy pot sales throughout the summer and super efficient hard work from everyone concerned, has pulled us out of the pickle we found ourselves in a few months ago. Luckily for us the lockdown plant giveaway scheme kick started the recovery, giving us a chance to clear out, re-pot and trade right through the summer period. The microprop lab is going to take a bit longer to get back on its feet because of the massive loss of sales and breakdown in the production program, but given a few more months we can get it back on track.

We saw the new bank manager last week who was delighted with our recovery efforts and very supportive in both word and deed. He was a bit over excited as we were his first site visit since lockdown. As a result the necessary finance is assured for the winter and we can almost relax. I received some sage advice from my very old friend Roger who popped in this week to catch up on our news, 'don't spend it all'! Sadly it was too late, I had just ordered 10 brand new wheelbarrows in an extravagant flourish. Hopefully there will be enough now to reduce the number that go 'walkabout' when they are in high demand. Autumn and winter is our wheelbarrow season, we never seem to have enough.

I hope you are all feeling as relieved as we are with the recovery in our market, we are luckier than many.

Availability list highlights

Salvia nemerosa varieties are showing colour nicely. Particularly good this week are fresh plants showing colour of Blue Marvel and Compact Caradonna. Fresh batches of Scabious Mariposa looking good with buds on show. Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage. Persicaria Inverleith are strong and compact, in bud and showing colour. Darjeeling Red have bud and colour too. Strong batch of Nepeta Junior Walker now in bud and showing a little colour. A properly compact form of catmint.

As the time moves on we shift into Aster season. We have a great range of healthy chunky stock at the moment and the buds are now showing but numbers are dwindling fast. A new crop of Verbena Lollipop and rigida are ready, plenty of colour but not too big. Squeezed on a couple of our most popular lines through the year, Erysimum Bowles Mauve onto the list this week as well as Erigeron Stallone. Both have tight bud showing.

Fresh Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have the first few niger and orientalis on the list now as well as some of the larger ones, foetidus and argutifolius. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Sedum Autumn Joy are in bud. Classic late summer flowering and so good for the bees, trimmed back earlier to produce nice short plants. Munstead Dark Red are nearly there. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy and Woolly

Hi Everyone,

Here comes that September blast of summer again. We so often get a little late weather bonus and hopefully it will encourage everyone into their gardens again. Certainly down here in the south we have had a very pleasant weather window, once the downpours earlier ceased. We even recovered one of the polytunnels this week. We would have done more if the chap in charge had got the sheets ordered early enough! Fingers crossed they will be here on Monday as it looks like Monday and Tuesday could be good covering days with sunshine and high temperatures. There's nothing quite like a warm supple sheet to get a nice taught finish. We have uncovered and prepared a couple more tunnels in anticipation I just hope I've not been getting a bit too much ahead of myself. Tunnel cover production has got pretty sophisticated over recent years. We have lashed out on one sheet in this batch, for one of our heated propagation tunnels, which has 8 different layers in its construction which makes it really good at retaining heat. In combination with another clear sheet underneath it, kept apart by inflating the gap with a little fan, we should be super heat efficient and have a cover that lasts at least 8 years. Putting on one sheet can be a challenge at times, so putting two on at the same time does add a little extra to the excitement, especially when you have to get both slightly slack to allow room for inflation but not too loose that they balloon to far apart, plus you have to get a near perfect seal all around the edge to ensure it stays inflated. We have only done this twice before so I'm just hoping the memories of quite how we did it come flooding back. As usual we will make it up as we go.

Potting is slowing up a bit now as we begin to see the light at the end of the polytunnel. We have a couple of days worth of compost left in this load and then we have 10 bulk bags of a trial compost to test out it's overwintering performance. It is a mix we tried it out on a small scale in January and it performed remarkably well. It was a bit of a wild card, a mix of mostly wool and bracken and the ingredients are all UK produced. Rather scarily it doesn't have any added slow release fertiliser so I was pretty sceptical that it would cope with some of our hungrier or longer term crops. I still have most of the plants here in the trial, other than a few that got snaffled into a landscapers collection, and they have all done really well. There is no sign of nutritional stress despite the planting of some pretty vigorous plants. The wool (you really can't see it in the mix) is supposed to (and does seem to) reduce the water demand which could be a very useful characteristic. We also seem to have less liverwort growth on the compost surface but that could just be a fluke, we will have to judge it in the larger trial. Quite excited by it, as it is a bit of a radical mix, but a move away from added slow release fertilisers would be great and using more local ingredients is potentially more sustainable. It is a bit pricey but if the benefits are good enough I would love to give it a real go at some point.

Availability list highlights

Salvia nemerosa varieties are showing colour nicely. Particularly good this week are fresh plants showing colour of Pink Marvel and Blue Marvel too. They carry bigger flowers than most other varieties and good strong colour. Don't miss them I don't think they will hang around long. Fresh batches of Scabious Mariposa looking good with buds appearing. Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage and a few buds coming too. Persicaria Inverleith are strong and compact, in bud and showing some colour. Darjeeling Red have bud and colour too. Strong batch of Nepeta Junior Walker now in bud and showing a little colour. A properly compact form of catmint. New batches of Salvia Amethyst Lips and Hot Lips are in bud and flower again but only a few left.

As the time moves on we shift into Aster season. We have a great range of healthy chunky stock at the moment and the buds are now showing but numbers are dwindling fast. A new crop of Verbena Lollipop and rigida are ready, plenty of colour but not too big. Fresh Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have the first few niger and orientalis on the list now as well as some strong chunky foetidus and argutifolius.

Short and bushy Penstemon Garnet are showing bud now. A late potting that looks full of promise. Sour Grapes looking good too although I can't see bud yet. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Sedum Autumn Joy are in bud. Classic late summer flowering and so good for the bees, trimmed back earlier to produce nice short plants

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy Outing

 Hi Everyone,

A bit early, I feel, for the dip in temperatures, but at least it seems a bit more settled and a bit less damp in the local forecast for the next week or so. No signs of an Indian summer so far which would have been handy for plant growth and sales, but it still might happen. To be fair sales are still bowling along so we are not complaining.

I daren't say we have nearly caught up with the nursery work, because it blatantly isn't true, but we are getting there. The backlog of potting is miles shorter and the number of tunnels to be cleared dwindling rapidly. I have even got to the point of thinking what site improvements we can get stuck into in the next couple of months. Rescuing and improving the drainage system will be a priority, as well as recovering those tunnels that have split their covers over the summer. We might even get time to do this before the cold really sets in, which would be a joy because the sheets go on so much tighter if warmed up a bit in some early autumn sunshine.

This will be the first 'no potting Saturday' for ages, and a chance for a short lie in before another session of label printing. Another week or two and the wooden label stock levels will be back up to 'normal' which will hopefully result in fewer calls for emergency print runs during the despatch process, we can then relax a bit more as the seasons pressures gradually reside. Managed a trip to the local agricultural store for some chicken food last weekend, my first trip out in a mask, very exciting. Hardly anyone there, so fairly relaxed, but just not wanting to touch anything. Not quite what it used to be and no real end in sight. We are very lucky to have been allowed to bounce back so quickly, there are so many who are still scuppered by it all. I can't think when our modern jive sessions will start up again and I do miss them. It was something that dragged me off the nursery each week and forced me to think of something else for a while. With a brain as small as mine, it doesn't take much these days to fill it and trying to remember the moves you have just been taught is tough enough, let alone adding in those you did last week. Brain overload every time, but a lovely crowd to dance with and have a catch up. However you couldn't pick a much worse pastime for social distancing, lots of different partners, close personal contact, heavy breathing and all the rest, and that's before you start dancing! One day we be back, no matter how alien that type of behaviour seems at this time. Collecting new sofa and chairs tomorrow will be the weekend highlight. The current set are shot and completely threadbare and the offer of an old 1930's suite was too tempting to refuse. We have only seen a couple of snaps of the chairs and nothing of the sofa but they look entertaining. Quite small seats but huge roll-over arms and big fat backs, they look very 30's, if not very space efficient! The covers look like they have seen a lot of life and all it could throw at them, but a few drapes will disguise that out until we have tested them out and decided whether to go for the full reupholstering (might have to take it up as a new hobby).

Availability list highlights

Salvia nemerosa varieties are all budding up nicely. Particularly good this week are fresh plants showing colour of Pink Marvel and Blue Marvel too. They carry bigger flowers than most other varieties and good strong colour. Don't miss them I don't think they will hang around long. Fresh batches of Scabious Mariposa looking good with buds appearing. Ajuga's are looking great, bold fresh foliage and a few buds coming too. New on for this week are a fresh batch of chunky strong Liriope muscari which are producing a few flower stems now. Persicaria Inverleith are in bud and showing some colour. Darjeeling Red have bud too.

Strong batch of Nepeta Junior Walker now in bud and showing a little colour. A properly compact form of catmint. New batches of Salvia Amethyst Lips and Hot Lips are in bud and flower again. As the summer moves on we shift into Aster season. We have a great range of healthy chunky stock at the moment and the buds are now showing. A new crop of Verbena Lollipop are ready, plenty of colour but not too big.

Tradescantia Blue and Gold still going strong, buds still popping up, just a few left. Fresh Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have the first few niger and orientalis on the list now as well as some strong chunky foetidus and argutifolius. Short and bushy Penstemon Garnet are showing bud now. A late potting that looks full of promise. Sour Grapes looking good too although I can't see bud yet. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Sedum Autumn Joy are in bud. Classic late summer flowering and so good for the bees, trimmed back earlier to produce nice short plants

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy drainage

Hi Everyone, 

Happy holidays.

Another record week for sales, although thankfully it is definitely a bit quieter now. Not quite sure what's going on with the weather, from blistering heat to biblical downpours and now really cold nights. Yesterday I did wonder if we were going to get washed down the hill, the volumes of water flowing through the nursery were scary and the intensity of the rainfall just nuts. It has left a bit of a mess and we are going to have to spend several weeks through the Autumn reinstating and improving our drainage system which has now largely been blocked with silt and debris. It is something that we are seeing more of and we need to prepare for worse I think. It's not the end of the world (yet) but just needs a bit of planning and investment to manage these events and minimise the damage. I have already done some remedial shopping with a new mechanical trommel (rotating sieve to clean the drainage gravel for reuse) and replacement drain lining fabric to reduce the silt build up in the future while maintaining fast drainage. We already have more drainage pipe ready to lay and I suspect more pipe and channels will have to follow. Fingers crossed it all works.

It has been a good week for repairs. Our mechanical bed cleaner has had a new gearbox fitted and now runs very nicely so we have sent the manual bed cleaner off for a lie down. He has gone camping with the family on the Isle of Wight, oops, not brilliant timing. Hopefully they missed the worst of the rain and cold! Give me my own loo, shower and comfy bed anytime. I know my limits. Our brilliant battery operated knapsack sprayer (saves my pumping arm and nodding head) had to be dismantled after many months of having to hit it in just the right place to make it go. Half an hour to take apart locate the loose terminal and fix, three hours to put back together. Why me?

Have a great weekend whatever you are up to, I'm hoping for a few hours off the nursery at some point (we are not despatching on Monday) although I suspect I may be here. It is the last Saturday for the potting team, some of whom are off next week on a well earned break. We have sort of caught up although it is always a race to the end of the growing season and we never seem to win it!

It's getting dark out there, must be time to go.

Availability list highlights

Salvia nemerosa varieties are all budding up nicely. Particularly good this week are fresh plants showing colour of Pink Marvel and Blue Marvel too. They carry bigger flowers than most other varieties and good strong colour. Don't miss them I don't think they will hang around long.Fresh batches of Scabious looking good with buds appearing on Butterfly Blue and Pink Mist. Mariposa are close behind. Ajuga's are looking great, bold fresh foliage and a few buds coming too. New on for this week are a fresh batch of chunky strong Liriope muscari which are producing flower stems now. Achillea Terracotta are in bud. I don't have many but they look good. Persicaria Taurus and the more compact Inverleith are both in bud and showing some colour. Darjeeling Red have bud too. Strong batch of Nepeta Junior Walker now in bud. A properly compact form of catmint.

Osteospermum Tresco Purple are erupting into bud now with the odd open flower. just a few left. New batches of Salvia Amethyst Lips and Hot Lips are in bud again, strong and bushy and ready to go. Erigeron Stallone are back in numbers. Loads of bud showing and good colour on the current batches. As the summer moves on we shift into Aster season. We have a great range of healthy chunky stock at the moment and the buds are now showing. Aster frikartii Monch looking healthy. Nice bushy fresh batch with flower shoots shooting! A new crop of Verbena Lollipop are ready, plenty of colour but not too big. Just a few colourful Viola Etain left.

Tradescantia Blue and Gold still going strong, buds still popping up, just a few left. Fresh Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have the first few niger and orientalis on the list now as well as some strong chunky foetidus and argutifolius. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy escape

Hi Everyone,

 Marginally quieter this week, but still plenty of distractions from potting which we are desperate to get on with. We did get a fair amount done and we have a gang in again tomorrow just to catch up a bit again, so it's not a disaster, just not quite ideal. We seemed to have a lot of people missing this week, a combination of well earned holidays, illness and car breakdowns conspired to scupper the master plan, but hey-ho we are still here planning and producing for next year, which is something we weren't sure was going to happen a few short months ago.

We had one of our regular plant health inspections today which is always a bit of a worry, but thankfully all was well with the plants in stock. The main point of discussion was all the changes to plant importing and exporting that go along with leaving the EU. We have prepared as much as we sensibly can so far, signing up to the government online sites that deal with all the admin involved with all the new rules etc. These online sites are now apparently out of date and will be unable to cope with the volume of trade involved once January is upon us (they deal with all goods coming in and out) so new ones are going to be introduced at some point. No one is quite sure yet what the new rules, tariffs, admin procedures or extra costs are likely to be, as negotiations are still ongoing. This means we can't do much more in the way of preparation ourselves other than try and sort out an import agent who can sort as much of the admin as possible and coordinate all parties. I can't really get my head round the whole idea at the moment, but hopefully it will turn out simpler than it sounds. We know it will add to the cost of our young plants but by how much is also an unknown at the moment. All imported plants are due to go to regional hubs to be inspected by the authorities because there is no room at the ports which will add further cost, but the hubs don't yet exist and it is due to start on Jan 1st. It's a good job none of us have anything else to worry about at the moment!

On a lighter note, we had our first NBIS meeting for 6 months this week. A small group of us meet up to compare figures etc and have a catch up. It's as much a therapy session as anything and it was great to see a few familiar faces again over fish and chips and a small beer. The weather was glorious so we managed to all sit outside, nicely socially distanced and discus what an interesting few months we had all experienced. We have a broad range of producers represented, but no bedding growers, who were impacted the hardest by the lockdown. Consequently it was a series of tales of great escapes from impending disaster. We have a few who market through the internet who had tales of the manic chaos and feelings of guilt that took over during lockdown. They knew how others were suffering, but at the same time they struggled to cope with the astonishing demand. Then there were the others supplying the retailers, who lost their main markets for the peak season but found their own way through the lockdown and out the other end into the stresses of satisfying huge consumer demand in the garden centres for the following weeks. We are all thankfully ok now, just rather shell-shocked and tired. Everyone was excited about the prospects for continued high demand into next year, but unsure quite what to do about it. I think we will make it up as we go along, just for a change!

Availability list highlights

Salvia nemerosa varieties are all begining to bud up nicely. Particularly good this week are fresh plants of Pink Marvel which we haven't had this year yet and Blue Marvel too. The Pink is in colour and the Blue close behind. They carry bigger flowers than most other varieties and good strong colour. Don't miss them I don't think they will hang around long.

Ajuga's are looking great, bold fresh foliage. New on for this week are a fresh batch of Liriope muscari which are producing flower stems now. Achillea Terracotta are in bud. I don't have many but they look good. Persicaria Taurus and the more compact Inverleith are both in bud and showing some red colour.

Strong batch of Nepeta Walkers Low in bud and a fresh bushy batch of the properly compact Junior Walker is looking strong. Osteospermum Tresco Purple are erupting into bud now with the odd open flower. Hopefully enough for a few more weeks. Last few Cosmos Chocamocha left, buds appearing and loads of potential.

New batches of Salvia Amethyst Lips and Hot Lips are in bud again, short and bushy and ready to go. Erodium Bishops Form are still going strong, the flowers just go on and on. Erigeron Stallone are back in numbers. Loads of bud showing and a flash of colour on the current batches. As the summer moves on we shift into Aster season. We have a great range of healthy chunky stock at the moment and the buds are now showing.

Aster frikartii Monch looking healthy. Nice bushy fresh batch. Tradescantia Blue & Gold still going strong, buds still popping up. Fresh Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have the first few niger and orientalis on the list now as well as some strong chunky foetidus and argutifolius. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy machinery

 Hi Everyone,

Here we are again, I can't believe how fast the weeks are flying by. Only a couple of weeks and it's August Bank holiday time. Thankfully the weather has cooled down now after a run of stifling days of high heat and humidity. I'm not good in the heat and the machinery here didn't like it either. The backup engine cooling fans on the Peugeot van packed up, resulting in all sorts of flashing lights and warnings in the cab, but luckily everything stayed cool enough to get back to base. It is now in the garage awaiting arrival on Monday of a new set of very expensive fans which should sort it all out. Our rotary bed cleaning machine also died with a burst oil seal in the gearbox (a sealed maintenance free unit) and the potting machine lift chain stretched beyond its limit and started banging around in its housing. I have a new chain ready to fit in the winter, but it's a big job and we don't have time at the moment to do it. A bit of clever cutting with an angle grinder allowed a bit more play in the adjuster mechanism and we are adjusted ourselves out of trouble, we just have to limp through two or three more loads of compost and we can stop and refit after that. Naturally the irrigation system sprang a few leaks on the hottest days. Over 24 hrs two solenoids came apart overnight creating their own little water display. Both times I got extremely wet doing the repair but that was fine as I was pretty overheated at the time. Good news this week that the 7.5 tonne van sailed through its delayed MOT, not so good news was the pallet weight they put in the back for the test sailed through the bulkhead and ripped out a load of rivets, adding a lot to the ventilation in the box. Ooops. Very embarrassed mechanic who will be repairing it as soon as we can get it back to him. It was perhaps more dramatic than disastrous, it is a cosmetic injury really and hidden behind the cab, so no worries.

I really expected sales to fall away last week, but no, wrong again, we were fractionally busier than the previous week. After a good watering in the gardens over the last couple of days we could see a resurgence and even more interest, cue the sales drop, it has to happen soon, I'm not sure how long we can keep it up!

Availability list highlights

The herb sales just keep going but the range is recovering a bit as sales slow a little and the potting at last can keep pace.

Main current highlights on the flowering stock front are;

New batches of Salvia nemerosa varieties are on the list this week. Bud is either showing or on the way. Particularly good this week are fresh plants of Pink Marvel which we haven't had this year yet and Blue Marvel too. The Pink is in colour and the Blue not far behind. They carry bigger flowers than most other varieties and good strong colour. Don't miss them I don't think they will hang around long.

Achillea Paprika and Terracotta are in bud. I don't have many but they look good. Osteospermum Tresco Purple are erupting into bud now with the odd open flower. Hopefully enough for several more weeks! Lovely strong bushy plants. Fresh batch of great Cosmos Chocamocha on the go, buds appearing and loads of potential.

New batch of Salvia Amethyst Lips are in bud again, short and bushy and ready to go. Still a few Hot Lips left, a bit smaller but in rampant growth at the moment. Erodium Bishops Form are still going strong, the flowers just go on and on. Erigeron Stallone are back in numbers. Loads of bud showing and a flash of colour on the current batches.

I could tell from the scent in the tunnel that one of the Viola oderata had produced some blooms. Sure enough Konigin Charlotte has a flush of its classic purple flowers on show. Very bushy plants with small flowers but high impact scent. We have a few of the pretty Viola Etain back on the list again, in bud and showing a bit of colour.

As the summer moves on we shift more into Aster season. We have a great range of healthy chunky stock at the moment and the flower heads are forming. We are still a little way from colour for most varieties. Numbers will be a bit limited, although we have quite a lot of the ageratoides varieties this year. I got a bit carried away on my purchasing when I realised how much more resistant to mildew they were. They are great plants but not quite as strongly coloured or named as the more traditional types. I like the more subtle tones myself, but they perhaps aren't quite the show stopping display of the others.Aster frikartii Monch looking healthy. Nice bushy fresh batch.

Tradescantia Blue and Gold still going strong, buds still popping up. Fresh Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have the first few niger and orientalis on the list now as well as some strong chunky foetidus and argutifolius. Ajuga's are looking great, bold fresh foliage.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy heatwave

Hi Everyone,

Looks like it's going to be a hot few days down here in the south. The one day of extreme heat we had last week was enough for me, but you can't do much about it. It looked like being so hot tomorrow I nearly cancelled the potting team from coming in, but the pressure of what needs to be done was just too much. We are going to start and finish early in an effort to avoid the worst of it, and although pretty oppressive today it has clouded up significantly since lunchtime which I think has improved things a bit. At least we won't be queuing in the traffic to get to the beach!

Sales this week are still bowling along, although slightly down from 2 or 3 weeks ago. It is a bit of a relief in some ways as we have been able to catch up slightly with the herb potting and availability. We are still under pressure, but it feels slightly more under control than earlier. I'm sorry there isn't a huge amount in colour with the perennials just at the moment, I just can't hold onto the stock long enough! There will hopefully be a bit more coming, but any hope of a big run of blooms has slipped by now with the continuing high sales levels.

I have been ordering some more young plants this week, to come in next season, which I would quite enjoy doing if I had a bit more time and confidence in the future. I picked a good moment yesterday when I was feeling very positive about what the next season might bring, so the purse strings went a bit slack. Caroline won't see the invoices for months yet so I shouldn't get too much grief just yet. I had talked to a couple of our supplier reps during the day and discussions on the level of demand with new customers coming into gardening plus the likelihood of fewer holidays being taken etc filled me with lots of positive expectations for 2021. I have already increased the overwintering stock levels so that we can cope with a continuing swell of demand early on in the season, and with more to come later in the spring we are going to be busy. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly this time and we can keep up this momentum.

Rescued hedgehog released this week but seems to have settled a bit too well in his new home. Caroline moved the mini hen house she had been using, to a suitable site and left the door open so it could leave at will. Sure enough off it went, only to return the morning for a kip and a bit more supper. Now we will have to leave the house out there until he has finished with it. I suppose it might turn into a winter hibernation site in a few months, we'll see.

Availability list highlights

The herb sales just keep going but the range is recovering a bit as sales slow a little and the potting at last can keep pace. The perennial range is still under pressure but this too should recover over the next few weeks as sales dip and potting catches up.

Main current highlights on the flowering stock front are;

Osteospermum Tresco Purple are erupting into bud now with the odd open flower. Hopefully enough for several more weeks! Lovely strong bushy plants. Fresh batch of Cosmos Chocamocha on the go, buds appearing and loads of potential.

Erodium Bishops Form are still going strong, the flowers just go on and on. Erigeron Stallone are back in numbers. Loads of bud showing and a flash of colour on the current batches.Summer flowering Gaura are coming along nicely with buds on show and colour very close. Several varieties already sold out but a couple of others are on the list to replace them.

I could tell from the scent in the tunnel that one of the Viola oderata had produced some blooms. Sure enough Konigin Charlotte has a flush of its classic purple flowers on show. Very bushy plants with small flowers but high impact scent.

As the summer moves on we shift more into Aster season. We have a great range of healthy chunky stock at the moment and I feel bud is not far away, but no matter how hard I look I can't quite see any yet. Numbers will be a bit limited, although we have quite a lot of the ageratoides varieties this year. I got a bit carried away on my purchasing when I realised how much more resistant to mildew they were. They are great plants but not quite as strongly coloured or named as the more traditional types. I like the more subtle tones myself, but they perhaps aren't quite the show stopping display of the others.

Both Aster frikartii varieties are on the list this week with fresh batches now ready. A few buds appearing already on Flora's Delight, but I don't have many, so don't hang about. Lots of lovely bushy Monch.

Tradescantia Blue and Gold still going strong, buds still popping up. We have a few Tiarella back on the list, flowers are on show and hoping for more to follow. Fresh Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have the first few niger and orientalis on the list now as well as some strong chunky foetidus and argutifolius. Ajuga's are looking great, bold fresh foliage and the odd bud appearing on Burgundy Glow. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

 

Hairy planning

Hi Everyone,

I'm marginally more organised this week, or perhaps a better excuse would be a small dip in sales pressure at last. Still more than double the same week last year, but a step down from the last few weeks. It has given us a little more time to get stuck into tunnel clearing and potting so not quite the chaos of recent weeks. Back with a Saturday potting crew this weekend after a rest last week, in an effort to continue the catch up on production. It is mostly now all stock being potted for spring sales, but it is still a rush to get it done, despite that time seeming a long way off. A days extra growth now is worth a week in November for most plants, in fact some of them go into root dormancy well before that. It is easy to get caught and miss out on getting a good root system going before the challenges of winter consume us. Then on the other hand there are some plants, like Erysimum, that just keep growing right through the cold months and if you pot them too early they can get out of hand before they do their spring thing. Juggling the timings and priorities adds another element of excitement to the proceedings.

At the moment I'm trying to judge what our herb stock levels should be over the winter. We try not to do too many as the spring potted stock tends to look a lot fresher once it comes on stream. But with no heat and growing the plants on the hardy side, there is quite a lot of the late winter and early spring that needs to be covered by our overwintered stock. Will the current demand still be there in those early cool days? And if it is, at what level do we pitch the numbers? We can't afford to waste stock by chucking it away unsold, but on the other hand it is frustrating for all if we don't have the stock to satisfy demand. The advanced planning has already gone out of the window, with quite a bit of stock destined to be overwintered, already potted and being sold now. Great for cash-flow and the business recovery, but tricky to work out what will be left at the end of the season. I have ordered in more stock and done extra sowings, to pot where I can. These will more than cover the volumes sold so far and gives us quite a bit extra. Whether it will be enough we will have to wait and see. To be honest everything is still so much up in the air, we are still not sure what is going to happen with anything really. As has become the new normal, we just do what we can and fingers crossed it works out ok. Not a great way to run a business or plan your life, but that is just how it is going to be for a while and we must make the best of it.

Last week's hedgehog patient has recovered well and due for release tomorrow after the field crop is baled up and out of the way. Swifts are gathering overhead in feeding flocks over the fields that are being harvested building themselves up for their long migration south. They are the first of those long winged summer visitors to leave, usually picking the first week in August to make a move (avoids a lot of the holiday traffic I expect) and is a sign that the summer is slipping by. Luckily the swallows and house martins hang about a while longer to entertain us and keep the flies down a bit. No nests on the house again this year which is disappointing but perhaps next year. There is going to be a lot of 'perhaps next year' for a bit!

Availability list highlights

The herb sales just keep going but the range is recovering a bit as sales slow a little and the potting at last can keep pace. The perennial range is still under pressure but this too should recover over the next few weeks as sales dip and potting catches up.

Main current highlights on the flowering stock front are;

Osteospermum Tresco Purple are erupting into bud now with the odd open flower. Hopefully enough for several more weeks! Lovely strong bushy plants. Fresh batch of Cosmos Chocamocha on the go, the odd bud appearing and loads of potential. Erodium Bishops Form are still going strong, the flowers just go on and on. Erigeron Stallone are back in numbers for a minute or two. Bud showing but not colour on the current batches yet. I just can't hang on to them long enough to get the flowers open!

Summer flowering Gaura are coming along nicely with buds on show and colour very close. Some varieties already sold out but a couple of others are on the list to replace them.

As the summer moves on we shift more into Aster season. We have a great range of healthy chunky stock at the moment and I feel bud is not far away, but no matter how hard I look I can't quite see any yet. Numbers will be a bit limited, although we have quite a lot of the ageratoides varieties this year. I got a bit carried away on my purchasing when I realised how much more resistant to mildew they were. They are great plants but not quite as strongly coloured or named as the more traditional types. I like the more subtle tones myself, but they perhaps aren't quite the show stopping display of the others.

Fresh Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have the first few niger and orientalis on the list now as well as some strong chunky foetidus and argutifolius.

Ajuga's are looking great, bold fresh foliage and the odd bud appearing on Burgundy Glow. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.