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The tea
bag collection? Jeff
Capel |
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When you
ordered your BCSS seeds, (as you surely did,) did you notice that 'our
Jeff'' was on the address. So what is involved? Hear now from the National
BCSS Seed distributor(s) of the trials and tribulations...
The beginning of
September 2005 Diana and I went up to Sheffield to pick up the racks.
These were erected on a wall in ‘The Office’, (which used to be one of
our spare bedrooms). When the boxes of seed packets arrived, they were
sorted and placed in the appropriate compartment and we were ready for the
off. Diana’s sister wanted to know why she was collecting tea- bags! |
The Journal containing the
seed order forms arrived on Wednesday, a week before Christmas. I was expecting
a quiet time for a while but next morning the letter box rattled and 16 orders
arrived, a little bit later in the morning Trevor arrived with his order. Diana
and I decided to start getting the orders out that day and I think many were
surprised to receive their seeds before Christmas, (well done to the Post Office
for delivering them so quickly).
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The next day the postman
had to ring the doorbell as he could not get the bundle of 67 envelopes
through the letter box. When Diana opened the door his comment was “What’s
going on, have you won the lottery and these are begging letters?” From
then on I received an average of about 30 – 40 orders a day for about a
week, tailing off after that to 10 – 20 and then 4 or 5 a day, at the
time of writing (late January) it is about 6 a week.
We soon ran out of the
choice seed, eg. Ariocarpus, Lophophora, Turbinicarpus and Lithops, which
had to be limited to one pack per person, and substitutes sent, but I
think everyone has received some of the ones they had ordered. It really
is an awesome responsibility making a choice for “please send
substitutes of your own choice” especially when items in your own
collection are viewed as very strange by many judges and fellow
collectors. I thought the response to the Hardy Opuntia offer was not as
good as it could have been. This was a chance to change our landscape for
ever!
Christmas Day, Boxing
Day and New Years Day were certainly different, between opening presents
and meal times, it was into the office to do some more orders. Over the
last few weeks we have sent out over 475 orders, around 16,000 packets,
and taken over £3,550. Even the local Post Office ran out of stamps as we
were sending the orders out so quickly. |
Before
and after... the tea bag collection |
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I received orders from abroad
as well: seeds have gone to Italy, France, Germany, The Czech Republic and as
far away as Australia, Laos and Canada.
As to the ‘tea-bag’
collection the racks which were bursting are now very depleted but I could still
pick you out something a bit special – do you fancy some very choice
Neoporteria varieties and ever reliable Notocactus?
As the order numbers have now
dropped, it looks like I can now reduce the staff. Time to put a real tea-bag in
the cup Diana!
Jeff
...Thanks Jeff
and Diana, we always wondered how it all happened. 16,000 packets of seed! Handy
as well for those seeds to be so near home. The Ed jumped the queue to deliver
his order by hand so his order joined the first 17 (and accepted a cup of coffee
for his trouble, thanks!) Then his seeds were delivered by Jeff - what a
service!
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Brambles
Patch to Brambles Patch 2
Ian &
Julie Priestley
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- Moving a Collection – A Sorry Tale!!
Nowadays, moving a plant
collection is a common experience for many. Somewhere, the Editor got the idea
that we would do a good job of this !!!!!! and so we were asked, and agreed, to
summarise our project management efforts.
Basically the house move in
mid-May 2004 went very smoothly, the removal professionals did their job
excellently. However, for the amateurs, sadly moving and constructing the
greenhouses and relocating their contents did not!
THE PLAN: We were lucky in
reaching an agreement with the previous owners of our new house, giving us
access to the garden once contracts were exchanged. We should thus have been
easily able to erect the new large greenhouse and one or perhaps two others.
This meant our (2-3000?) plants could have been moved to their new home and
sorted out before we completed the purchase. Potentially we had plenty of time
(2-3 weeks say?) to move the plants, then dismantle and move the three aluminium
greenhouses at our old property.
THE REALITY: Plan A - Due to
the weight of the toughened glass to ground tpanels, fitted as standard in our
new 30 ft x 15ft Robinson greenhouse, we were advised that this structure needed
to have proper footings dug and installed to support the base. We had
discussions with several contractors, to ascertain how this could/should work,
without leaving our new lawn looking like a WW1 battle area. Finally, all was
sorted, then the evening before the planned concrete base was to be laid, the
contractor phoned and said they couldn’t do the job, some key staff were sick
and it was too wet for their heavy machinery!
So back at square one, we
managed to arrange for alternative footings plus a paving slab base, to be laid
a week later. Unfortunately Des Boughton, who was booked to construct the
greenhouse on our behalf, was not then available to erect the new greenhouse -
he was booked elsewhere, being very busy preparing for the Chelsea Flower Show.
At this point, we were both feeling very stressed and tempers were often close
to boiling point….!
Plan B, our vendors kindly
agreed to empty their triple garage a few days ahead of completion date so we
could store the majority of plants therein. However, the resultant delay in our
moving the plants meant we were then left with three greenhouses to dismantle in
only two days!! Our old property was situated in the corner of a cul-de-sac and
for those two days we certainly greatly inconvenienced the neighbours as there
were 2 remover’s lorries blocking the road plus the rental van Ian used to
move the plants. Fortunately, being May, the weather was reasonable and the bulk
of the Echeverias and other succulents were left outside in trays on the lawn
and patio. The availability of a large stock of plastic trays made this fairly
easy, as did the tremendous contribution of labour and moral support from Jeff,
Simon and Diana Capel, without whose help, we would surely have gone under….!
Thanks guys and gal, a debt is owed!
All this hassle resulted in
the new large greenhouse, being brilliantly put up and fully glazed in only one
day by Des B plus one experienced helper!!! two days after we took possession.
No we couldn’t believe it either!! One of our original Bernhardt aluminium
greenhouses was subsequently erected, but both were left in total chaos, instead
of being nicely organised and neat and tidy, as was planned. OK, there are still
some plants underneath the staging, although once Ian has time to finish
organising things properly, we think all the plants should fit properly on the
staging? The middle bench and the staging along one and one half sides of the
large greenhouse have been tidied so far, and it looks much better. Capillary
matting has also been cut to fit the trays, which will make watering easier
later this year.
We then also had problems
getting electricity fitted to the greenhouses. Another phone call to cancel, one
day before the electricians were due, (whilst Ian was out of the UK for a month
in China) meant “her indoors” had to quickly arrange for more quotes. As
this was now the middle of September we were lucky the weather remained mild.
Eventually, the job was finished the first week in October – the following
night there was a frost! What good luck!
CURRENT STATUS We now live
next to a golf course (8th fairway) and, as above, the large greenhouse is
fitted with toughened glass, and yes, of course it has been tested, we have had
several balls bounce off this…..without damage!! We had anticipated there
would inevitably be some breakages, but so far only five panes have been broken,
which is not too much of a problem now we have found a friendly, local glazier.
However, the golfers do not usually appear to have much (any???) idea where
their balls land and only one so far (incidentally a neighbour Haha!) has owned
up and paid for the damage caused.
In general, the plants do not
appear to have suffered for the move, indeed, several which have been dormant
for some years are showing signs of growth – unfortunately this is causing
some ring marks on a few cacti. The light intensity seems to be much greater
here as we have an open aspect to the rear of the garden and hopefully this will
help us produce more flowers and improve growth. The new greenhouse also has a
false bubble wrap plastic roof, for the winter, which has kept the heating costs
below what we were paying previously – a little more good news!!
We also now have a superb
opportunity to sift through all the plants and a major repotting exercise is
underway. In theory all plants should be repotted, though inevitably, some have
been / will be moved on to the branch and other sales tables in 2006.
Hopefully, we should thus see
a general improvement in quality over the next year or so, in consequence of our
efforts!!
Ian & Julie (-
both now no longer under doctor’s orders!!!!!)
