Late March
The Month of March has been a little testing to say
the least, family comes first as they say. So things have gone slightly
haywire, & aren’t getting any easier now with this pandemic corona virus
hitting the country. It feels as if this year is going down hill fast,
having got all orders in nice & early for all my compost ingredients the
sterilised loam pic 1
was soaking wet rendering it useless. To make
things worse the 2nd delivery was just the same, as I write this it’s
now 20th of March & no loam for my composts. My early cuttings went to
the wall due to me not being around, they need more looking after in the
early stages.
It’s surprising how slow plants move when you look
at them each day but
when you are away for some time they appear to speed up.
Once the plants are up & running room
is soon used up.
Being away has put me behind on making up the hanging
baskets & of course no loam doesn’t help. With all the uncertainty over
the corona virus with many of the early spring shows & now Chelsea
flower show cancelled, it could quite easily be a complete shut down for
12 months. With all the early meetings of both the NBS & the Scottish
all being cancelled another headache for me as I normally take surplus
started plants to sell off, so now have a few hundred extra to do
something with. I have to admit it’s all getting a little out of hand &
I don’t seem to able to get on top of it all. Plants that were started
with the National show in mind have all now just about started.
My large glasshouse is still full of all the old compost although I
may have to reuse it for this years compost, all my Flamboyants still
need to be harvested. Still self isolation may come in useful & I may
catch up hopefully, if we have any shows to attend.
I still have 105 cutting tubers
that have been in my garage that I have now bought up to the greenhouse
it just gets worse, more plants that were being kept back for the
British cut bloom championships. The mild winter hasn’t helped much in
killing off many bugs & the only way to get rid of these is put the to
the sword or a size 9 boot.
Still if
nothing else & the shows are cancelled I should have a nice bit of
colour in the glasshouse.
Keep safe till next time
Phil Champion
