Plant Nursery Crawl

I spent today doing a plant crawl. SImilar to a pub crawl, it was a tour of plant nurseries in the company of a friend. I say friend, but her plants thrive and grow while mine totter and fail. I’ve had enough success growing plants from seed the last few years, but last year and this (when I really need them) some have failed in whole squads. This year, like last year, the peppers, aubergines, chillis and melons have all failed at one point; I have maybe one surviving melon plant and a very weedy set of tomato plants left. The kale and cabbage seedlings are doing well.

I was held back by a peculiar April. Living in a very dry region (lower rainfall than Malta, on average), having a dry month means an extreme level of low rainfall. Add to that the frost twenty nights out of thirty, higher than average daytime temperatures and a soggy May to follow and you can see that I can’t plonk surviving tender seedlings in the polytunnel. The temperatures in both greenhouse and polytunnel were often below zero at night and above 30 C in the day. The potatoes and onions went in at Easter and were under fleece till a fortnight ago; the soil was too cold to plant carrot seed and everything else is crowded into the greenhouse for what minor protection it affords.

It was a relief to be released to the next stage of lockdown and to join a friend in a crawl of five plant nurseries. Not all the same. One was lush, a sprawling set of terraces of roses, herbs, alpines, fruit bushes, and an entire half-acre of Japanese maples. One was an offshoot of a famous local vineyard that sold everything from candles to chocolates to tools to quirky gifts and some plants. Others were smaller, sparser, less well-off but with plants that were reasonably priced and employees clearly deeply involved in the business. They were pleased to see customers, ready to chat and had genuine smiles. I loved walking in amongst the deep ranges of plantlife in the bigger nurseries. I loved the friendly reception we got in the smaller nurseries. The smallest nurseries got the most of our money.

I came home with a range of plants – the kind of vegetable plants I couldn’t get in my local nurseries, an acer my husband liked, a pale blue scabious I remembered from my childhood visits to Cornwall and a deep blue lithadora. Someday soon the weather will settle, and I’ll be out there planting.