Placement 2 begins: Eden nurseries

Friday 2 July 2010

After a bit of worry over not being able to contact Mark, who was helping me organise my placement, we finally spoke and he told me I would be starting at the Eden nurseries at Watering Lane rather than on the main site today, and so yesterday I met him at Eden and we drove over to meet Roger and the crew for a quick tour and a cuppa. Roger said to start at 8am today, and on arrival I was assigned to Tim, who runs the greenhouse that supplies plants to the humid tropical biome. He got me repotting various plants, including peace lilies and amorphophallus tubers, and then in the afternoon I trimmed the old pitchers from the various pitcher plants - some of which contained some rather grisly deceased insects. On clearing out some dead plants I lifted a pot and several red cockroaches scuttled out and back under cover - lovely.

Tim has grown some lotus (nelumbo) from seed and the first flower opened today - after only two years compared to the normal three, so he was really pleased. The flower regulates the temperature inside it, meaning it is slightly warmer when you stick your nose in. The flowers also close when the temperature cools or the sun goes in, although it didn't ever feel too cool in the greenhouse, which is incredibly humid. A good start to my placement; I really enjoyed myself today.

Monday 5 July
On arrival I was assigned to Steve, who got me pruning the dead bits off bamboos (phyllostachys) before he repotted them (which involved jumping on the pots to loosen them). After break I was assigned to watering his greenhouses and polytunnels, plus some lavenders that stay outside. He has to do this most days, especially in hot weather, as the plants can be wilting by the time he's finished if it's really hot and sunny. Some of the greenhouses have drip feed irrigation but otherwise it's all done manually with a long hose and a 'lance'. It took me the rest of the day to finish it, stopping almost exactly at home time, but it's actually quite an enjoyable job and I can see why Steve likes listening to his mp3 player as he works!

There are actually only four permanent full-time staff members - Roger, Tim, Steve and Maureen; the rest are part-time, volunteers or part of the Roots staff, a salad bag charity that employs disabled people, which is run out of one of the glasshouses. They're a cheery bunch, everyone having a good chat in the mess room at lunchtime.