Hairy Autumn

Happy autumn to all. Certainly a change over the last few weeks from the blistering heat to more autumnal wind and damp.

Quite a relief and certainly better for good plant growth and getting a fork or trowel into the ground again. Slight worry that sales have taken such a sudden dip in the last couple of weeks, but it does seem to be happening earlier and earlier each year as some consumers turn away from the garden just as it comes into traditionally the best planting time. Unfortunately there is no amount of autumn promotion that seems to be able to change that feeling. The autumn is when things die back look a bit knackered and the spring is when all things burst into all that promising growth. Seems a shame to miss out on all that warmth and growth potential in the soil, but it is what it is.

It's all change on the nursery as the seasons move on, with the last of the main potting completed this week, just the late Erysimum batches to pot and the spring bulbs too.

My long summer campaign to renew and re-furb the irrigation spray-lines is very close to completion with just 2 tunnels to do, hoping to get that all done either this weekend or early next week. I could do with a break from it all as my right hand thumb has suffered a repetitive strain injury where I grip the pie-cutting tool and when I push in the rubber inserts into the very tight drill holes to hold the down pipes. I have a new jerky click in my thumb joint, just hoping it isn't old person arthritis coming on. and that a change of job, some more pills and a big dose of ignoring it will make it go away.

We have our annual 'end of potting season' trip to the local recycling centre on Friday to clear our massive collection of card boxes which our coir pots are packed in, together with the last of the plastic tubs that we grew our micro-propagated crops in. It takes two trips in our 7.5t lorry to clear it all but it creates lots of space in the barn which is very satisfying. This will be the last trip to include the lab plastic tubs, as production in the lab has now come to a halt. This week saw the second batch of lab and growth room equipment leave the site to find new homes on a couple of other nurseries who are have a play with their own small labs. We still have another couple of batches to pack and dispatch over the next few weeks, but it really hits home that this is the end of an era when I start to dismantle the shelves and LED lighting system in the growth-room and see the empty spaces.

I had a couple of timely distractions this week, one day spent at a workshop on 'carbon reporting in horticulture' and another showing a group from one of our favourite National Trust sites around the nursery. Unfortunately for our visitors I probably had a too much time on my hands and they got the full on ramble on all things hairy and sustainable, We did the full nursery tour, history of the site, demonstrations of automated seed sowing (couldn't get the machine started!), potting machine. wooden box printing and construction, label making, micro-prop tour, solar panel operations it was all there. I think I suggested originally it would take and hour and a half but two and a half hours later I had to stop myself before they passed out through a lack of lunch!

Far less exciting was the carbon workshop. After a couple of winters struggling with trying to obtain a sensible carbon report to try to help us get to Net Zero at some point, I thought they might have an answer. The main stumbling block is calculating what are called the Scope 3 carbon emissions, they cover all the carbon produced by the things you buy into the business from materials to services. Currently most carbon calculators use very generalised figures which for horticulture create very inaccurate results, and I was hoping to see a change, but the workshop illustrated clearly that we are still in the same position. so we were told don't worry about it just monitor your direct carbon use instead, which is where we were in 2009 when we first started looking at this!

Availability list.

Autumn flowering Cyclamen hederifolium is showing great colour. Rose and White looking at their best. Liriope muscari is now showing plenty of flowers so summer must be passing quick. Best we have ever had. Two tone foliage of Tiarella Pink Skyrocket looks very smart, buds are just beginning to show themselves. Lovely new short bushy batch of Verbena bon. Lollipop and bonariensis (quite short), now in bud.

The Salvia Lip's series and Salvito's are still going strong, we keep giving batches a trim to strengthen them up and keep them from getting too tall and they just keep bouncing back. The Aster Alpha series are showing tight bud but close to selling out some colours, The more standard classic varieties of Aster varieties are also showing nice tight bud with the odd opening flower as well.

Mini Garden Chrysanthemums are running out, just the white variety left with lots of bud. I only have this one left as I forgot to add it to the list a few weeks ago so sales are lagging slightly behind the others! A fab range of the compact Helenium Hay Day series are budding well now, with colour showing. Get ready for late winter flowers by planting our Helleborus range now. Just added a whole heap of different coloured Helleborus orientalis varieties.

Take care, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.