Hairy surgery

 

HiStill too wet for my liking. We had one glorious day on Wednesday and the rest was decidedly damp. I support it's better than being snowed in! The warmth on the skin on that one day was enough to encourage some Spring like feelings but we won't go into that.Apologies if you have  had any emails from us this week without a proper  ‘signature footer’ on the bottom. Our IT upgrade is still having a few teething issues and the tech team  (not me this time) slightly messed up the set-up of automatic signing of emails. We were told all was ready  and we no longer had to select anything to have  our ID message on the bottom, but it didn’t happen. Apologies if anyone wondered who we were with our bare  bottoms. Fingers crossed all has been resolved.A productive week on the nursery, probably because I was absent on trade  show duties for some of it. Greg dug a massive hole to find a leaking pipe joint in the rainwater harvesting system. It has been messing up the pumping of the rainwater from the sump at the lower end of the nursery to the storage tank at the top. Despite all the rain we have  had,  the tank was not quite filling up all because the leak was siphoning off the top couple of feet of water every time the rain stopped! It was quite a challenge to fix it, but all is complete and the tank is already full again.
The 12,000  new capillary mats are all cut up and stacked on pallets ready  for the coming season, all the broken  pallets are sawn up ready  for the despatch wood burner,  and the FSC plywood for all the POS  boards are cut and prepared with chamfered sides and corners, ready  for silk-screen printing. We had our young energetic, coffee fueled, and very professional tree surgeons in again, on their cherry picker lift, to clear the tops of a runaway conifer hedge that was beginning to interfere with the power cables. There  were a few other bits to tidy up too and they did a cracking job overall, leaving us with a lovely pile of chippings to spread under  the solar panels and a good-sized invoice. Exciting to see such dramatic changes happen so quickly.

The Squires trade  show was a rare day out for me, but it’s good for me to interact with the real world occasionally, or so I’m told. Some lovely chats with lots of people, just reminding me that we aren’t alone in trying to make  things better,  alongside making a living.
Summary of the improvements to shelf life for 2026
We are introducing three  changes this season in how we prepare our plants for delivery to our lovely retailers. We know some sites struggle to maintain the quality of our plants once  they arrive on the retail plant sales areas. 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. Do your 2026 retail prices need changing?We have  increased our cost prices for 2026 by just 5p per pot, which is a little under  2%, to partially cover our ever-increasing costs. If you have  your stock pre-priced by ourselves, perhaps now would be a good time to let us know any changes you would like to make  for the coming season. We can then adjust our records accordingly and get started on printing the correct  price labels in advance of the fast-approaching madness of those spring sales.
Availability list.The first spring bulbs are here,  and a few are already showing their first buds and colour.Two of the hoop-petticoat Narcissus have  bud, White Petticoat and the pale lemon-yellow Julia Jane, both are crackers. Bear in mind that both varieties look creamy lemon yellow when they first open,  but the White Petticoats fades to white as they age,  more than Julia who hangs on better  to the lemon yellow. Julia is also a more vigorous variety. Other compact Narcissus starting to show bud too
There  are two Scilla showing bud and a good colour, so spring must be coming up fast!There  are three  Pulmonaria varieties in bud and close to colour. We don’t have  much Blue Ensign left but plenty of the other two at the moment.Several Erysimum varieties are already showing bud and the odd flash of colour and are standing up well after several hard frosts we have  seen here.Cyclamen coum Silver-leaved are flowering and will flower from November through to March and April.Seasonal best wishes from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.