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.