It’s been an enjoyable autumn so far, the summer climaxed with the Cambridge International Lavender Conference which seemed to go off as smoothly as a chocolate mousse spread over  Mandels….oh never mind. But if  the organisers,  Tim Upson and Susyn Andrews were suffering the inevitable behind-the-scenes crises, they concealed them from the rest of us with heroic élan. Because I was speaking there I missed the opening celebration of Henry VIII’s Chapel Lawn at Hampton Court for which we supplied the plants. Nothing happens the entire year and then some really exciting events come along all at once. I look forward to seeing it eventually and  perhaps meeting the ghost of Anne Boleyn enjoying the plants. I hope she wipes Henry round the ears with a stalk of wet Hesperis, she seems a so much more colourful character than the vapid victims that followed her into the royal bed. Then of course there is Henry’s gorgeous sister, Mary of York. In spite of  having her identity grotesquely mangled on that ghastly BBC programme,  she was perhaps the only half-decent member of the whole  dynasty of  unspeakable usurpers. Not only more interesting than Anne even, Mary had a major but hitherto undocumented influence on English garden history. Please someone, get writing about her.

Little going on at the moment, after paying their taxes everyone has spent what little money they had left, on escaping to a meteorologically and politically happier climate. Now they are saving up for Christmas. However, in spite of the dingy low light levels, the temperature has stayed up which has saved us a fortune on heating and we have had  feelers for some truly exciting projects next year. We are keeping our fingers crossed that their funding won’t suddenly get withdrawn during the winter.

Following on from my previous  comments about people querying the names of the plants on our list, we have clocked up some more this month. Never during nearly four decades in the job have I known so many people ask “Is the x on your list really x?”  The temptation now is to reply “Of course not, I locked up Harry Potter and the Archangel Gabriel together in a padded cell and told them I wouldn’t let them out until they had written down the name of every plant they found growing on the dark side of the moon for our catalogue” This questioning  may be only  mildly insulting but I have to admit that even my familiar sunny amiability was utterly shredded by a customer yesterday who demanded her money back because we sent her the plant that she ordered rather than the one she had intended to order. There was a  background story to this, I had clumsily snapped the Salvia I had planned sending her (and which she had ordered),  as I removed it from the propagation bench. Fortunately my friend Chris Seagon from Laurel Farm Herbs was on the way  here to expand his mint collection  and generously called in to  collect a replacement from Derry Watkins whose nursery he passed en route.. Not only that, but  he told me about the experiences of his ex-girl friend who worked in the complaints department of the "Home improvement company" with whom I had signed a contract the previous day. Scary!  I immediately googled them and found myself  metaphorically looking at a pile of entrails that had been abandoned to ferment in a field. So I grabbed the opportunity to cancel the contract there and then.  Clearly  I shall have to buy Chris one drink for warning me off the blighters and another for collecting the Salvia. This part of the story shows the heart-warming  side of  "networking in the nursery trade" but before you all go “aaaah, all this saccharine makes us want to throw up!”  the fact that the customer demanded her money back after no less than three nurseries combined their efforts to provide her with precisely what she asked for rather than me simply telling her that  I had damaged her plant and was returning her cheque, demonstrates that if you go the extra mile for a customer, you will fall over the edge. Still, I expect we will continue “going the extra mile” because, in addition to the sheer number of rare plants, customer care is the reason people come to us in the first place. Nevertheless such incidents make retirement an increasingly attractive prospect.  

In fact the range of plants is too much for the pair of us to manage and so  last week we culled a hundred and fifty of  those which don’t sell, are easily obtained from a garden centre or just a complete pain to keep alive. That leaves about seven hundred. This morning a bloke rung up and begged me not to knock off Miss Wilmot’s ghost. Sorry mate, she’s already vanished back into the ether,  such is the nature of ghosts, but we do have Eryngium maritimum,  (of which we can never grow enough), a wild French species  and E campestre. I would really like to get back to our core of  herbs which were in use prior to 1550 plus a small collection of North Americans, just to remind me of what my ancestors were selling around 1800. (Just added Oplopanax horridus to our list) Besides which we don’t appear to share our colleagues’ problems in growing Hydrastis and I would be reluctant to forgo the premium price it commands. Should we continue with the Ayurvedic and Chinese herbs? At this stage I don’t know, compared with Upright Germander for instance, they are just a waste of space, but if James Wong gives them a plug in his forth coming book, I shall kick myself if I get rid of them.  All the same, my advice would be that if you want them, come and grab ‘em quick. Shame, I have just found out how to grow Atractylodes. It’s simple really, just do the opposite to what all the books tell you.