Isn’t it typical? I was just about to leave for a few days away when the postman arrived with an armful of brown boxes addressed to me. How exciting. Yes, very, but the timing was rubbish.
The greenhouse was watered and ready for a couple of days of neglect, my bags were packed and we were about to leave. OPEN IMMEDIATELY shouted the labels.
How can you ignore such an order?
Well you can’t knowing that some poor little plants have endured a journey of many miles, wrapped in packaging and shaken about, until they reach the threshold of your garden.
So, departure was delayed as I unpacked seventy or more young plantlets from Gardening Direct and Suttons Seeds.
Some had obviously been thrown about in transit and were barely still planted in their little modules, while others appeared to have grown twice as tall in transit and were doubled over in the packs.
Fortunately they are quick to recover and with a gentle water and some fresh air were soon looking perky and healthy again. I didn’t have time to pot them all up so they were carefully arranged in shallow trays, watered well and left on the greenhouse staging in full light to recover from their journey.
Protected by the greenhouse, from the cold, inclement weather currently enveloping the UK, the little plants should be back in full growth and perfect health within days.
