Back to normal

After the hectic weeks of preparing for the Open Day it was a nice change to be more or less back to our usual activities and keep ploughing our lonely furrow..

Granted, there was still plenty of cleaning up to do, get the Fovs room back in shape, put tables back, get chairs and folding table back to the Conference centre, move plants back from the platform to the nursery etc.

We already brought another 80 seedlings from home to replace what has been sold and found a place for them in the shade house. The shade house is still fairly full since we cannot use the annex until the soil is levelled which should happen soon. We also need to provide some extra shade for the Clivia seedlings, all in good time.

Never a better time to rearrange things as when stocks are low so we got stuck into the greenhouse, turfed out everything that wasn’t growing and move all trays ready to be potted out to the potting table. Now all depends on Sisanie to bring us soil which he promised to do by next Wednesday. We have also run out of pots so we need to get those as well.

It was a hot day and the hacking crew arrived at tea time rather exhausted but after a lengthy rest got chain ganged into helping to move the Proteas back. When that was done I decided it all could do with a good soak to the sprinklers were on for quite a while.

We needed to plant the Chinese lanterns we were given just before the sale and decided that the best place would be the pebble area as it is quite dry there so off we went after lunch with nine trees in total and in 33 degree heat managed to dig suitable holes and plant them.

The rest of the afternoon was still spent weeding in the shade house and sorting out the misting house and to really round it off on the way out to annihilate a patch of Bryophyllums which was growing right in front of the manager’s house!