Hairy chaos

Morning all,

Still not the best of spring weather really, but sales are ramping up none the less and the plants definitely think it's springtime. Easter approaches rapidly and the season of bank holidays is nearly upon us. A lovely time for all those able to take a break, but a tense and exciting time for all coping with the garden trade as demand peaks and time seems to evaporate. Christmas and New Year are good ones for us, not too much to do and we can put our feet up to a degree, but springtime breaks just cause so much upheaval at such a busy time anyway. At least we are busy which is better than some, just hoping we don't end up being busy fools!

We are certainly going to be busy over the next few weeks. Not only are sales taking off at last but there was a mass influx of lovely young plants this week, delivered from various suppliers. I thought I had loads of space in the module tunnel but suddenly it's bursting with plants wanting to get potted and we are now struggling to find time to get to them. Mind you it didn't help that a combination of illnesses, emergencies and appointments meant that we were up to 7 people down for most of the week which hurts when you only have 24 to start with! Hey ho, you can only do what yo u can do, no point it letting it get you down, at least there was nothing too serious wrong with anyone.

Work on the water recycling installation has continued this week despite the variable weather, a lot of the drains are recovered and the sump rings are in, topped, plumbed into the drains, and buried. Encouragingly the sumps have already filled with just an afternoons rain, but will need emptying again before the submersible pump can be properly installed next week. It's been chaos in the main yard over the last couple of days with a cable trench having to be taken out right across the middle, severely restricting all the usual ins and outs. It was all going to be so simple, a quick cutting of the concrete and digging out, followed by a rapid fill. Unfortunately being a very old farmyard there turned out to be more than one layer of concrete and it was all very hard so the cutting took a lot longer than expected.

Then the digging up of the trench spread a load of cracks elsewhere, as one layer separated from another, and to top it off the digger burst a hydraulic ram seal and delayed things even further. Now the dumper truck has lost its gear oil or some of it, so that is now out of action too. It's a relief to know these weren't my problems to sort out, although the open trenches today did cause a lot of hassle and juggling of vehicles and routes around the nursery. I'm hoping this will all be a distant memory by Monday as the installation team are coming in over the weekend to finish off a lot of the work and get the yard at least partially operational. What fun.

Party time on Saturday. Sadly we are running our first potting overtime session on Saturday morning so I will miss the lunch, but jelly and ice cream should be on the menu for tea, as a whole host of grown ups celebrate great nephew Oliver's first birthday. It's home time at 5.00, hope there is a goody bag, it is the done thing I believe, although it has been a long time since I was invited to such an event. I am taking my own PX to slosh on the ice cream, just to add a bit of panache to the event. I'm nearly through my third bottle since Christmas and still the pounds from Christmas refuse to budge, I can't understand it.

Availability list highlights

Cooler weather is still holding some crops back so not a lot of colour around, and those showing colour are selling through fast. Polemonium Heaven Scent is a stunner and looking great just at the moment. Finely cut bronzed green foliage is really smart and the pale blue flowers are now beginning to colour up. Grown in our own micro-prop lab it's not one you see everywhere.

Nice batches of Pulsatilla in red and purple forms, emerging quickly and in bud. Not a huge number, they won't hang around. Brunnera macrophylla now bursting through and instantly showing buds. Ajuga Chocolate Chips has plenty of early bud . Dicentra spectabilis are just pushing through and also showing early bud, Muscari latifolium now in bud, as are the last few Ipheion's Alberto Castillo (known locally as Albert & Costello).

Anemone blanda White Splendour is now also now showing flower. Very popular Fritillaria meleagris (Snakes Head Lily) are now just pushing though and flower buds appearing. Erythronium Pagoda is up, and again is another that comes straight into flower. Not many in stock, so don't wait too long. Camassia Sacajawea has smart variegated foliage so looks good even without the flower.

Spring flowering Symphytum are in bud now, don't hang about there aren't many left. Phlox paniculata has started to shoot strongly. Again another overwintered crop in a range of colours. The first Salvia to flower is now in bud, May Night. I know it's still only March, but it isn't quite in colour yet. 

Best wishes  from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Level and Hairy

Morning all,

Despite some dodgy weather this week sales picked up a bit after a quiet start, which was encouraging . This afternoon after a very wet morning, the sun made an appearance and for the first time this year it felt warm on the skin, spring comes knocking. I suspect we will suddenly get very busy and all our cool, calm and collected demeanour will evaporate in an instant, to be replaced by the usual massive spring panicky juggling act. What joy.

Managed to gap up a couple of tunnels this week so we could get the potting machine going in earnest. All went swimmingly with the new tweaks we made through the winter working a treat. We had a new machine installed last spring, but we never got round to levelling it up on our sloping floor, so the potting compost tended to be dispensed more on one side than the other. After installing a load of blocks under one side we now have it perfectly level and what a difference it made. We also made some new mini work stations some to put the young plants on by the potting positions, one specially designed for the pot dispenser (Krzys)  and another at a lower height ideal for extracting the modules on their extractor plates. The plates also got redesigned so they poke out the plants , but not far enough to topple out of the tray. It's only a few millimeters but it makes all the difference! All in all, potting is now an even more pleasurable experience for all.

It wasn't the easiest of weeks for installing trenches and pipe-work, back filling, levelling concrete pads and pouring concrete, but great progress has been made on the water recycling front. It is a bit of a mud-fest round the back of the nursery, but hopefully it will recover quickly once they have finished it off. Next week should see the sumps go in, the small extra tank go up and the last of the drainage lines go in and then it's down to the electrics and fine tuning. Such a relief to see it all go in at last and great to leave the job to someone else who knows what they are doing. While they are here and the trenches are open we are going to drop in a cable for a potential small solar installation, it seems silly not to take the opportunity, although the cable cost nearly put me off the whole idea. You are only allowed a tiny voltage drop from the installation to the export meter (165 meters in our case) which apparently means using a monster thick cable and it's eye wateringly expensive. Can't do it without it, so on we go.

The nursery electric car charger is now 15 months old and still only had two charges performed, one was the electrician who installed it and one an employee who left the week after (I didn't charge anything)! Hoping it won't be too long before we have our own car to charge on it, it has been on order since August 2021 and was due to be built in week 9. Not sure if I should have confirmed it was week 9 this year, and not next, as there is still no sign of delivery with the garage putting us off again. Fingers crossed it is imminent, but can't actually get an answer, so much for German efficiency and engineering! If they aren't quick I will have spent all the money on drains and solar panels. 

Availability list highlights

Cooler weather is still holding some crops back so not a lot of colour around, and those showing colour are selling through fast. Polemonium Heaven Scent is a stunner and looking great just at the moment. Finely cut bronzed green foliage is really smart and the pale blue flowers are now beginning to colour up. Grown in our own micro-prop lab it's not one you see everywhere.

Nice batches of Pulsatilla in red and purple forms, emerging quickly and in bud. Not a huge number, they won't hang around. Brunnera macrophylla now bursting through and instantly showing buds. Ajuga Chocolate Chips has plenty of early bud .

Dicentra spectabilis are just pushing through and also showing early bud, The white form are fractionally behind the pink but also straight into bud. Muscari latifolium now in bud, as are the Ipheion's Alberto Castillo (known locally as Albert & Costello) and Tessa. Anemone blanda Blue Shades is already showing colour and flying out. The White Splendour is now also now showing flower. Very popular Fritillaria meleagris (Snakes Head Lily) are now just pushing though, the flower buds follow very quickly later. Erythronium Pagoda is up, and again is another that comes straight into flower. Not many in stock, so don't wait too long. Camassia Sacajawea has smart variegated foliage so looks good even without the flower.

There is more colour showing on the Aubretia varieties, plenty of bud coming too. Phlox paniculata has started to shoot strongly. Again another overwintered crop in a range of colours This looks like one of our best Phlox crops ever, we beat the pigeons last summer and got them to a really strong size by the autumn. The first Salvia to flower is now in bud, May Night. I know it's still only March, but it isn't quite in colour yet. 

Best wishes  from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Directors D. Taylor C.P. Taylor A.F. Monk

Registered in England Number 1999 789 VAT Registration no. 411 9002 03

Muddy and Hairy

Morning all,

Time this week to catch up on some more jobs, with sales depressed by the unenthusiastic weather. Spring seems to have abandoned us with snow, wet and wind in varying amounts. Thankfully the snowfall here was slushy and short- lived, but it did disrupt a few delivery trips, so apologies if we said we would be with you one day and turned up on the next. I'm not too anxious on the sales front just yet, despite falling rather dramatically behind over the last couple of weeks, we should get time to make it up later assuming things improve. I have had a look at the forecast for the next 10 days and sadly it doesn't look very promising, but you never know, they have been wrong before and we do in theory need the rain!

It's been a bit of a double whammy for us. Having waited well over a year for someone to start work on the ground - works for our water recycling project and having just ended the driest February for ages, they started on Tuesday in the rain, with the full team on Wednesday in the snow. A digger, dumper truck and numerous visiting delivery trucks all recreating the battlefield of the Somme. With a longer term damp forecast, I think this is going to be a mucky one, but at least it is getting done. They actually made great progress in the time they were here, some very long trenches have been dug, pipes laid and back filling begun already. They reckon the sump foundations where we will collect, settle and filter the water, should be ready to be poured on Tuesday along with the base of the new storage tank, so fingers crossed it will be finished before the rain stops completely so we can make a start on collecting it.

We had a student visitation from Sparsholt College yesterday which went on a little longer than planned, due mainly to an enthusiastic audience and a presenter who doesn't know when to stop. Despite marking it in the diary the minibus arrival took me completely by surprise as the brain malfunctioned and all memory deserted me. I don't think anyone noticed and the nursery looked pretty tidy, so trousers were not caught too low.

Paid the first electric bill of the year last week, ouch. First month of new contract and it was a big one even with a £700 government discount, it was still more than double. Hope the wind blows a bit more over the next few months especially after the end of March when that cap goes. Thank goodness we have the turbines and started investing in power saving kit back in 2009. Our potential bill could have been massive.

Hoping for a celebratory cup of tea this afternoon in honour of starting yet another year, the excitement never ends. In theory next year is a big one, but any thoughts of setting my trug to one side seem to have evaporated after the recent wild levels of investment on the site. Oops.

Availability list highlights

Cooler weather is still holding some crops back so not a lot of colour around, and those showing colour are selling through fast. Polemonium Heaven Scent is a stunner and looking great just at the moment. Finely cut bronzed green foliage is really smart and the pale blue flowers are now budding up. Grown in our own micro-prop lab it's not one you see everywhere.

Also from our lab are some very smart Brunnera varigata with nicely marked new leaves. Flowers will follow very soon. Dicentra spectabilis are just pushing through and instantly showing early bud, The white form are fractionally behind the pink but also straight into bud. Muscari Blue Magic now in bud.

Anemone blanda Blue Shades is already showing colour and flying out. The White Splendour is a couple of weeks behind but now showing. Very popular Fritillaria meleagris (Snakes Head Lily) are now pushing though, the flower buds follow only days later.

Very popular Allium's and Camassia are both showing well now. Both of these are best sold and planted in leaf or very early bud rather than in flower. They are almost unmanageable for transporting at the later stages and most alliums have rather tired foliage by the time they fully flower. Camassia Sacajawea has smart variegated foliage so looks good even without the flower.

There is a bit more colour beginning to show on the Aubretia varieties, plenty of bud coming too. We have some fab chunky overwintered Lupin's ready to plant out. This early crop is muti-shooting and will produce lots of flower later on but it won't be around for long. They get too big too quickly when it eventually warms up, so we limit the numbers grown to keep them growing within the pots!

Phlox paniculata has started to shoot strongly. Again another overwintered crop in a range of colours This looks like one of our best Phlox crops ever, we beat the pigeons last summer and got them to a really strong size by the autumn.

Best wishes  from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy Rats

Morning all,

The cooler weather has slowed sales a bit and next week might be even quieter with a bit of a northerly wind picking

up and dropping the temperatures. Hopefully it won't be for too long, I'm not too worried abou t the sales at the moment but it is miserable working out in that cold wind and it would be nice to shed some layers and rush about doing spring stuff. That's what we are up to today, the first potting compost delivery arrived this week so we have spent a couple of days on the potting machine filling up a few of the spaces that have appeared around the nursery.

The slightly scary thing about starting the potting now is that it signifies the ending of the winter jobs. All those tasks you felt would definitely get done this winter will now have to hold until next year if they aren't very close to completion already. The coming cold week may give us a few days to get a bit more completed and then it's nose to the grindstone with full speed plant production and hopefully sales.

We did complete one big job this week which was to finish the winter wooden box making. Hopefully we have enough boxes made now to see us through the rest of the year, with boxes coming back from yourselves quickly enough for us to refill and despatch again.  We get about 4 reuses a year from each tray, but we are very reliant on getting as many boxes back as soon as we can, to keep the ball rolling in peak season. I know the boxes look lovely but please don't be tempted to stack up the empties as part of your display. They cost us £10+ each to make so you can appreciate that it would be very easy for a lot of value to be tied up if everyone used a few to fancify their displays.

One van in the menders this week. A new fault to us. The moulded plastic pipe feeding diesel from the top of the fuel tank to the engine was damaged beyond repair. The culprit believed to be a rat! They had seen it once before, gnaw marks, looking like rubbing wear but there was nothing there to rub it. New tank needed, ouch.

NBIS therapy session on line last week. It's a great group to be part of, everyone is very supportive , sometime a little over familiar, but it does exactly what it says on the tin, it constantly provides info and ideas to improve your business. Why there isn't a queue of people waiting to join I don't know, but numbers are dwindling as members retire etc, so if you know of any nurseries looking for some support point them towards the HTA.

2023 Retail price reviews

In view of our price increases for 2023, don't forget to review your own retail prices and let us know ASAP. 

Availability list highlights

Cooler weather is holding some crops back so still not a lot of colour around, and those showing colour are selling through fast. Polemonium Heaven Scent is a stunner and looking great just at the moment. Finely cut bronzed green foliage is really smart and the pale blue flowers are now budding up. Grown in our own micro-prop lab it's not one you see everywhere.

Also from our lab are some very smart Brunnera varigata with nicely marked new leaves. Flowers will follow very soon. Primula grandiflora Rosea have suddenly appeared and already showing a little bit of colour. You don't get much leaf until later in the season but short multiple stems of bright pink flowers.

Dicentra spectabilis are pushing through and instantly showing early bud, The white form are fractionally behind the pink but also straight into bud. Muscari Blue Magic now in bud. Anemone blanda Blue Shades has suddenly made an appearance and already showing colour.

Scilla sibirica with it's fabulous blue flowers are just poking through with the odd bud showing. Very popular Allium's and Camassia are both showing well now. Both of these are best sold and planted in leaf or very early bud rather than in flower. They are almost unmanageable for transporting at the later stages and most alliums have rather tired foliage by the time they fully flower. Camassia Sacajawea has smart variegated foliage so looks good even without the flower.

There is a bit more colour beginning to show on the Aubretia varieties, plenty of bud coming too. We have some fab chunky overwintered Lupin's ready to plant out. This early crop is multi-shooting and will produce lots of flower later on but it won't be around for long. They get too big too quickly when it eventually warms up, so we limit the numbers grown to keep them growing within the pots!

Phlox paniculata has started to shoot strongly. Again another overwintered crop in a range of colours (more to come). This looks like one of our best Phlox crops ever, we beat the pigeons last summer and got them to a really strong size by the autumn. Now we should reap the benefits.

Best wishes  from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy Targets

Morning all,

Sales are ramping up now after another busy week. The steady weather pattern has helped I'm sure and we are hoping the cooler weather coming up won't turn out to be too disruptive.

We had a hectic week on top of those sales, with a big visit from a group of National Trust folk from different sites across the south east on Tuesday. I managed to 'entertain' them for two hours, well I say entertain, none fell asleep (it was too cold for that and they were standing up the whole time) and nice things were said at the end. I was awarded a tin of NT shortbread as well, which unfortunately wouldn't stretch round the whole team, so I bit the bullet and polished them off myself. The lengths I go to for the team.

Wednesday saw a visit from our solar man to do another site assessment now we have shown serious interest. We don't have any suitable roof space, so they will be ground mounted, which I quite like as it means I can get my hands on them (for cleaning if nothing else). I'm trying to get them to look into mounting them onto a frame that we can do some manual tilting on, allowing us to chase the lower winter sun and increase the output. We don't need anything fancy, just something like the old manual glasshouse venting systems that we can wind up and down a bit, once a month. I suspect it will be too much to ask, but if you don't ask you don't get. We sensibly pencilled in digging a big cable trench for the panels while the water recycling team are here, which would get the most disruptive job out of the way quickly.

Thursday was National Trust Net Zero seminar day, adding more challenges to my limited understanding of all the 'net zero speak' currently doing the rounds. The session was nicely done and did introduce to all the suppliers attending, how vital it was going to be to set off on their 'journey' towards net zero as soon as possible. The people telling us about how to do it were very honest about the dubious nature of a lot of the data currently being used to calculate carbon footprints, especially when you get into the minefield of Scope 3 emissions which I may have mentioned before, but we have to start somewhere. One phrase that has been doing the rounds recently is 'Science Based Targets' and how we all need to be using these to work out if we are doing the right thing, but I must admit it sounded to me like one of those wishy-washy phrases like 'environmentally friendly'. However I was wrong. Working everything out yourself and declaring yourself Net Zero in no longer acceptable, you need to do it using 'SBT's. Although a meaning for 'SBT's was read out it didn't really help: 'Targets are considered ‘science-based’ if they are in line with what the latest climate science deems necessary to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement – limiting global warming to well-below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C'. Ok have you got that, or have you dropped off?

Having Googled this afterwards it now makes a bit more sense, In theory if you want all figures properly verified EVERYONE has to sign up on the 'SBT initiative' website pay your dues (SME 's = $1,000-£2,000) to be confirmed as yes you are doing the right thing.

In theory there should be a competitive advantage by jump though all these hoops, but I have sore hips, knees and feet and I'm wondering if my hoop jumping days may be coming to an end.

Sadly dancing at the Guildhall has been delayed until late April, hope I'm Still Standing. Best wishes, Elton.

2023 Retail price reviews

In view of our price increases for 2023, don't forget to review your own retail prices and let us know ASAP if you want us to pre-price at new rates. I will have to update our records and make sure I have the printing plates ready to roll. Thanks. 

Availability list highlights

Definite signs of spring showing now with rampant shootiness just around the corner. There is a definite feel of 'fresh and green' this week after a pleasant week on the weather front pushing some more growth.

Polemonium Heaven Scent is a stunner and looking great just at the moment. Finely cut bronzed green foliage is really smart and the pale blue flowers are now budding up. Grown in our own micro-prop lab it's not one you see everywhere.

Also from our lab are some very smart Brunnera varigata with nicely marked new leaves. Flowers will follow very soon. We don't have many this year, but the Primula denticulata and now shooting and showing bud.

Dicentra spectabilis are pushing through and instantly showing early bud. Spring bulbs are well on the way. Only a few dwarf Narcissus left now so don't hang about. Muscari Blue Magic now in bud.

Anemone blanda Blue Shades has suddenly made an appearance and already in bud. Only a few ready at the moment. Scilla sibirica with it's fabulous blue flowers are just poking through with the odd bud showing. 

Best wishes from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy Spring

Mornign all,

That was a very busy week. One of those early weeks when lot's of sites decided that was the week to make a move. Last year it happened a week earlier, just before storm Eunis hit and everything went a bit quiet again! Hoping the same won't happen this year, I think the far north had a brush with a big one this week but we just had a nice stiff breeze, not enough to worry about but strong enough to get the turbines generating nicely.

We have been working on a small solar project over the past few weeks to back up our wind generation, so I can feel good about the weather sunshine or rain. We have just agreed to take it to the next stage of drawing up some proper plans and getting an accurate quote. I am hoping that the whole thing won't be too disruptive to the nursery operations, just as I was hopeful the water recycling would be a breeze. That was due to start in early February, but has now been delayed until late Feb/early March, which of course moves it into our busy season. I'm sure it will be fine!

Having a such busy week in despatch highlighted how we weren't quite ready for full-on action, with a few label shortages and organisational ruffles to smooth out. We had a bit of a get together this afternoon with some of the bright young things and myself, to re-jig a few things ready for next week. We applied a little bit of our Lean Management training, did a bit of a de-clutter and redesigned the layout. They are fairly small changes but will hopefully add up to making life a little easier for everyone when the pressure is on. With luck an easier workplace brings more efficiency, and we need as much of that as we can find.

We had quite a bit of work done on one of the Fiat vans a couple of weeks ago, as part of its service. Nothing worrying but things that needed doing ahead of its successful MOT this week. As a special treat for the garage I foam cleaned it, just before the service, so the mechanics could at least find the wheels and bonnet. It had suffered over the winter, but cleaned up amazingly well. I'm not sure if it was worth it in the end as it is now hard to tell which one I cleaned.

The end of February is when our CC trolley annual contract renews. It's an interesting scheme that works ok most of the time, although some of the participants, like us, do suffer quite a hit on the shelf repair front. Every member who rents the CC trolleys and shelves is given an allocation each year of the number of shelves they are allowed to return for repair. Some people will exchange their broken shelves but apparently quite a lot don't take up the option, having found an easier way of 'losing' the shelves, by slipping them onto the trolleys returned to their suppliers. Consequently some growers, not us of course, have so many broken shelves above their allowed allocation, that they end up mending them themselves and only exchanging those that are beyond repair. Our full allocation went in this week, although we didn't quite clear the backlog sat round the back of the barn. There is another way. If you only have a small shelf exchange allocation and it isn't worth transporting them to the exchange depot, or you just don't use it, then you can go onto the CC website and transfer your allocation to the nursery of your choice. Our nursery CC Number is 600423 just in case you need it for the, very easy to use, online shelf transfer page. 

Getting onto more serious stuff, the first Winchester Guildhall jive date is booked March 14th, with another nine dates on offer for the rest of the year. Whoo-hoo! Not quite the full return to weekly lesson orientated sessions that are needed to maintain a healthy flow of fresh blood, but it's a start. We have still got to push the council to reverse their booking policy changes which scuppered the dance bookings in the first place. It's frustrating as I'm sure it would be self-funding. One year's bookings would account for about £30.000 which you would have thought would be enough to pay someone for five hours once a week, to be there 'just in case ' and to lock up at the end. They can be working on other things at the same time, they don't have to be in the room, sounds like a no-brainer to me, but then I'm not a councillor.

2023 Retail price reviews

In view of our price increases for 2023, don't forget to review your own retail prices and let us know ASAP if you want us to pre-price at new rates. I will have to update our records and make sure I have the printing plates ready to roll. Thanks. 

Availability list highlights

Definite signs of spring showing now with rampant shootiness just around the corner.

Polemonium Heaven Scent is a stunner and looking great just at the moment. Finely cut bronzed green foliage is really smart and the pale blue flowers will be budding up very soon. Grown in our own micro-prop lab it's not one you see everywhere. Spring bulbs are well on the way and buds are appearing on many of the short Narcissus we have.

Anemone blanda Blue Shades has suddenly made an appearance and already in bud. Only a few ready at the moment but lots more to come.

Scilla sibirica with it's fabulous blue flowers are just poking through with the odd bud showing. 

Best wishes from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy Display

Morning all,

Can't believe another week has flown by and I've still got a list of jobs as long as my arm I'm supposed to have got done, I might get a few done over the weekend as there might be fewer interruptions. It's been pretty cold again here with hard morning frosts and fog, which frustratingly holds back the plant growth. I'm just looking for those fresh spring growth spurts to herald some warmer days coming and get those gardening juices running. Not mine, mine ran out years ago, but those keen folk out there who are just waiting to unleash their purse strings in their desire to create a little bit of heaven at home. Just hoping there is enough left in those purses to keep us all afloat.

Not only have the orders started to build up but I had some big distractions this week, with a little trade show to attend as a exhibitor being the main cause of panic and a critical meeting on Friday at the Winchester Guildhall trying to secure a return to some regular evening exercise after a 3 year pause for covid.

It's been many years now since we exhibited at any trade shows as I'm not really very comfortable at pushing sales, it all seems a little showy and a bit too loud to fit easily within my comfort zone. I always thought, rather naively, that if we made the product good enough it would sell itself, although luckily over the last few years that has proved to be the case. So to be invited to a suppliers show for a chain of centres was a reawakening of all the joys of putting together a stand, sorting out how to get it there, manning it and getting it home again. When you see the display you might wonder what all the fuss was about, but it took a lot of farting about to get it to come together, especially after such a long break since the last one.

Luckily last year we put together a little training display bench on a converted trolley which was tastefully called 'The Trolley of Knowledge', and with a bit of remodelling it made a perfect focal point, acting as a hub for three trolleys of a fine collection of our plants. We selected a whole range of 'interesting' photos and extras to decorate the 'ToK' and it worked a treat. A few minutes to put together on site and quick to dismantle, we sold off most of the plants the following day, so not too much to sort out on our return. A lovely sunny day, meeting centre staff and senior management was, I'm sure, very worthwhile, although my back would probably beg to differ. How can standing about be so debilitating? Luckily I do have an effective cure, lie on your back with a tennis ball under the big muscles running up the side of your lower back. Try to relax the muscles allowing them to stretch around the ball and repeat on the other side. It breaks the tension build up in the muscles, elongating them while relaxing the whole area. Even better, use yoga style breathing techniques to increase the relaxation of the muscles for quicker and more effective relief. Our yoga teacher used to drive me to distraction when we first started on breathing exercises, I had been breathing for as long as I can remember without too many issues, why on earth would I need to learn how to do it again. Even worse was to come when we were asked to breath in through the top of the head and out through our toes, complete madness. There were many internal stubborn conversations about there being a lack of orifices to achieve this, but I must admit that when I let myself picture it mentally rather than fight it, it did relax and reduce pain in those areas I was supposed to be breathing out of. So do try it, breathing out of your back as you lie on your balls, as it were!

Fridays Guildhall meeting was to try and revive the Modern Jive classes and dances that used to be held there pre-covid. There is huge demand for a return but the Council changed the booking rules and staffing levels after covid, which stopped them from taking place. There used to be an average 110 dancers each week, with big weekend events and quarterly balls (breath out) of over 300. I have been helping out with an application of pressure on some of the councillors running the hall, to try and get some action and today was the culmination of  months of inactivity on their part. The hall manager Chris was a joy to talk with and a huge help, despite the fact that he initially couldn't see a way to facilitate a return. Eventually we compromised on a staggered return with the group allowed into the hall if there was other council activity going on elsewhere in the building. It's not perfect but it's a start and hopefully a full return will follow one day. Can't wait for the first return event, it should be a great party, just what I was hoping for when covid restrictions ended, but it never happened.

2023 Retail price reviews

In view of our price increases for 2023, don't forget to review your own retail prices and let us know ASAP if you want us to pre-price at new rates. I will have to update our records and make sure I have the printing plates ready to roll. Thanks. 

Availability list highlights

Winter and spring flowering Cyclamen coum are now available in small numbers with more coming on stream for later. Most are in bud with some colour showing.

Spring must be on the way, the Pulmonaria are up with most varieties showing bud with the odd flash of colour.

Spring bulbs are on the way and buds are already nicely on show on both the little hooped petticoat Narcissus varieties. 

Best wishes  from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.