Hairy cheer

 

Hi 

The rain is pattering on the roof as I type this, not great for festive cheer and fevered seasonal shopping, but hopefully it won't impact your own Christmas displays and sales too much. We had our first mince pies this week and put up our very modest mess room tree and the same tatty decorations which appear every year. Sometimes it's not the trendy colour scheme that matters it's the warmth and familiarity of getting out the same set of second-hand garlands and baubles to set the scene. Our own tree is also up but not quite decorated yet. The lights failed and I'm awaiting a fresh set before that gets done, but I have put a picture of it from a previous year on the cover of our Mail Chimp emails. You won't believe it but I made this myself, or maybe you would! A few old wooden venetian blind slats and some 2 x 2 was all it took and the homemade mini paper chains top it all off. We've had the same tree since 2008 and the paper chains I must have knocked up about three years prior to that, as I have pictures of those on the MK1 version of the wooden tree where I screwed pieces of dormant beech hedge branches to another piece of 2 x 2. That one didn't last as well as MK2.

Great trip up to New Leaf Nurseries with our reinvigorated NBIS group this week. Good attendance and plenty of new ideas to cherry pick and bring home, as well as catching up with the general mood of growers from across the ornamental sector. I can't say it was bubbling with huge anticipation of mega sales and profitability, but everyone was definitely looking forward with a positive hat on despite horror stories of banks letting long term customers down, with the comment by one bank manager that banks weren't in the business of taking risks. So it's the same old story; The bank is will lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain. The other scary topic of conversation was the increasing costs of labour and how dependant we all are on it. I just had an email from the NFU reporting that when the rise comes in next April (4.1% increase) the minimum wage rates will have increased by 52% in five years which I struggled to believe, however I have checked our figures and we are certainly at about 50% over that period, no wonder margins have been getting harder to find when this is our biggest single production cost.

New improvements to shelf life for 2026

We are introducing three major changes next year to how we prepare our plants for delivery to retailers. We are aware that some sites do struggle to maintain the quality of our plants once they arrive on the retail plant sales areas. The plants thrive when kept here on the nursery over long periods, the irrigation is pretty accurate and applied in a timely manner in the correct volumes, and the nutrition levels are set to give long lasting healthy growth. But once we set them free the real world isn't always so kind to them. As I mentioned last week peat-free compost mixes struggle to hold onto as much water as peat and also don't grip the nutrients as tightly either. When added to the extra breathability of our Hairy Pots, quicker drying out can be an issue, especially if the ideal of 'little and often' applications of water is not a practical option. When the plants dry out they then tend to get over watered which flushes out the available nutrients resulting in premature deterioration in condition. To help reduce these stresses and provide a longer lasting 'looking good' shelf life we are doing the following;

1/ Adding a reusable, recycled wool capillary mat in the bottom of each tray which will hold onto extra water for the plants to take up. These are expensive and will need to be returned for reuse with the boxes.

2/ Adding extra wetting agent at despatch to allow the compost to hold onto more water and rewet more easily if dry.

3/ Adding a dose of organic slow release feed as a top dressing to compensate for any leaching of nutrients.

It will be interesting to see what a difference these measures will take over the coming season, hopefully it will lead to more sales all round.

Prices for 2026.

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 the position again in 12 months time.

Availability list.

Get ready for 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 bud and some red colour showing too.

Cyclamen coum are coming on quickly. A winter and spring flowering form, the first few flowers are already 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.

Take care, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy and free

Hi 

A week of big events with the Budget yesterday having more leaks than our Hairy Pots, and a day out attending the RHS Peat Free Conference at Wisley. The Budget has been talked about enough already with endless coverage on the telly for what seems like weeks, so I will concentrate on something a bit closer to home with a fun filled conference report.

I do have to say the attendance was really encouraging with the hall packed with growers, most of whom seem to be well on the way to getting to peat-free potting, if not quite so close to managing to cover all areas of their propagation supply. It's coming together but just not quite there yet.

There were some blasts from the past present which stirred up a few feelings I didn't expect on the day. The opening speaker was the chief cheese from a multiple DIY retail chain who we had some dealings with 20+ years ago, in those heady days when we thought we would do ok selling in bulk to the big boys. It took 9 years of painful stress, hard work and losses, combined with the bullying arrogance that most supermarkets seem to employ when handling grower/farming suppliers before we could extradite ourselves from a very negative position. A bit of NLP training reminded us that we did actually have a choice in how we went forward, either go bust being beaten up by the big boys, or downsize and lose it all, doing something we believed in, by going Hairy! Luckily the latter option turned out to be a good call in the long run.

The focus was very definitely on peat-free at the conference and there was quite a bit of debate as to how it was being accepted, or not, by the gardening public. The performance and quality of many retail composts was questioned with a lot of consumers losing heart in going peat-free after some bad experiences. There appear to be two main reasons behind this, one being the variable nature of available retail mixes, with a lack of clarity as to which ones were any good. and the second being the big differences between how you look after a peat compost compared with peat-free. It looks like the quality variability will have a solution fairly soon with new standards, testing and certification coming in over the next couple of years to flag up those that will do the job intended.

The change in compost management may be slightly more tricky to achieve, as it does involve a bit of a rethink in how peat- free composts are treated to get the best out of them. Here in a nutshell is the theory behind the changes needed. Firstly the micro structure of peat fibres is naturally brilliant at holding onto water and fertilisers, whilst the ingredients of peat-free mixes are pretty good at it, but not as good. So a peat-free compost will run out of water quicker, and although the plants grown will not use more water, the compost may not have it available over the whole period the plant needs it. The solution is not to increase the amount of water given but increase the regularity of application. Little and often is the key. The fact that the plant nutrients are also not held so tightly in the mix means they are more susceptible to leaching out if over, or too heavily, watered. Little and often is again the solution.

Interestingly the RHS surveyed their members and the number one concern is the environment and climate change and the RHS seem to have interpreted this reply to mean that everything must be peat-free asap, conveniently forgetting about the widespread use of single use plastics within the industry. Be careful what you think you understand from surveys, it's all in the wording of the question. Personally I suspect that plastics pollution and it's use is higher on most gardeners agenda. 

Prices for 2026.

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 the position again in 12 months time.

Wooden box collecting is just about done..

We have already collected up most of our reusable wooden boxes ready for cleaning, drying and repair if needed, before they go into winter storage. If you have any boxes 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.

Availability list.

Get ready for 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.

Take care, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.