Hi.
It's all go. I'm still frustratingly tied to the desk this week although a few emergencies have dragged me away from time to time. The plant and label orders are still to be tidied up with preparations for a day or two away definitely getting in the way. Plant trimming and mulching has been the main nursery activity this week, so that we are clean and tidy for those early spring sales. Together with a heap of late winter emerging and early flowering bulbs, we hope to get 2026 off to a flying start.
Why is it, as soon as you threaten a little time away the house throws a complete wobbly. Anything that can break does, anything with a battery in it dies and anything with water in it starts leaking. I won't go into too much detail but Caroline has had to get the drain rods out this week and I've spent a long time in the loft trying to cure a sudden overflow drip. A quick washer change turned into replacement of whole valves, a newly leaking stopcock and a damp conclusion rescuing various bits that I had dropped into the bottom of a big and very wet tank.
All dry now on the water valve front, but last night there was a major leak from the credit card! I made a little purchase online and up popped a helpful message saying I was getting close to my credit limit. Bit surprised as I have been saving up for beer and pasties over the last month, I rushed to checked my transactions and a couple of days ago someone had booked a £4,500+ exotic holiday on my card! The money is now on its way back into the account, but the card is cancelled and I am going to have to rely on Caroline for an ice cream allowance. I couldn't believe that someone was able to spend so much on my card without any secondary checks/authentications being made, but apparently there are ways to do it.
Greg will be on hand in the office or on the end of the phone/email next week, so things will probably be more organised than usual. Don't hold back if you need some stock, someone has to fund my pasty addiction.
Prices for 2026.
Just a quick heads up that we have now set our prices for 2026 and published them on my weekly email to all customers (just click the link on the Mailchimp email).
As all years seem to be, it's been a challenging one, with one big increase in particular adding to our costs, on top of all the usual inflation+ pressures on virtually all materials and young plant costs. I know it's the same for everyone, but the 10% addition to labour costs, made up of the minimum wage increases and higher NI payments, has hit us hard. Labour is far and away our biggest cost and although we try to be more efficient year on year, it is impossible to keep pace with such big changes. As optimistic as ever, we have increased prices by just 5p per pot, which is a little under 2%, possibly not enough, but it is what we believe to be an acceptable change. We are hoping that even more improvements in productivity, together with growing sales volumes, will help us maintain a sustainable margin, but we will have to review again in 12 months time. You will actually get an improved product in 2026 for your extra 5p. We are rolling out a couple of retailer water retention projects next season; The first is to treat all stock leaving the site with a compost wetting agent which will help spread water throughout the root ball and allow the compost to hold water for longer. We are also going to add a rather expensive recycled wool capillary mat into the bottom of the wooden boxes to hold onto an extra litre or so of water and help keep the pots damp for longer. Both initiatives should lessen watering pressures on your retail sites to a degree and reduce the leaching of nutrient from the compost. We will definitely be needing the capillary mats returned back with the wooden trays whenever we collect them, as we need to put them through multiple uses to make them commercially viable.
Assuming you would still like your Hairy Pots to keep coming in next year, we would like to thank you for your support in keeping a sustainable business moving forwards..
Wooden box collecting is well underway.
We have already collected up a good proportion of our reusable wooden boxes ready for cleaning, drying and repair if needed, before they go into winter storage. If you have any ready to go just drop us a line and we will pick them up when next in your area. It may take a week or two to get round but we will get there eventually. We try to put together a good number of collections on each trip as it is always painful sending out the van without any paying cargo, but each tray does cost £10 to replace so it does pay for us to make the effort.
Availability list.
Get ready for late winter flowers by planting our Helleborus range now. Christmas Carol is showing some bud already and H. orientalis Halcyon Early Red is looking really good with plenty of bud and some red colour too.
Cyclamen coum are coming on quickly. A winter and spring flowering form, the first odd flower is already now showing with heaps more to come over the coming months. This selection is a champion winter performer, very hardy and just keeps on endlessly flowering, usually from November through to March and April. Subtle flower numbers give it a natural appearance and I have heard they are 'selling like hot cakes' from at least one of our favourite sites.
Most other late flowering stock has just the remnants of colour showing, so I can no longer really mark them up as being in bud and flower as I'm not sure how much longer they will show themselves nicely.
Take care, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.
