Passionate About Plants

Paul describes his "green" plant delivery service

How Green is Green?

As the loony fringe of the green movement pushes ever closer to ban the use of peat in gardening, Quaymount Nurseries has recently changed to growing in peat free compost, in readiness for a total ban on the use of peat in horticulture. Forgetting that the peat that most nurseries use is from regenerating huge peat bogs unsuitable for any other use, generating income for Baltic men whose livelihood will no doubt be put at risk.

Armed with my bags of peat free compost comprising of two different grades of bark mixed liberally with choir we set to potting frantically and low and behold the plants seem to be growing ok!

We duly loaded a selection of plants for delivery in Yorkshire and Dumfries and Galloway into my aging blue sprinter van, armed with knowledge that delivering plants such a long distance is a green occupation to do. Bleary eyed I set off at 5.30am to miss the traffic on the world's worst road the A17. The sun streamed in the windows it was a beautiful morning and even better no damn Tesco lorries to get stuck behind at 45mph. I had just done my first delivery when suddenly the radiator light came on the dash board, I promptly pulled into a lay by and yes a water hose was spewing water like Niagara Falls onto the tarmac. I slowly hot footed it to Newark luckily only 3 miles away. Pulling into the industrial estate I found what I can only describe as a dubious looking MOT and vehicle repair garage full of rotting old vehicles on full display, but my saviour was at hand. Along came a young mechanic eager to get me back on the road, yes I had fallen on my feet. Surprisingly enough such garages I have never frequented before due to the reputation of dodgy salesmen etc. but hey did I have my eyes opened! The young mechanic was helpful and efficient I had stumbled across the A and E of the garage world. My confidence rose when I found that the proprietor raced 4 x4's across wild desserts in that crazy Clarkson type manor. They duly set forth to change the water pipe whilst I paced up and down in the blistering heat (well it was Newark), like and expectant father, as the minutes (hours) passed by only to find that the rebirth of my aging sprinter was being hampered by a stupid fan belt which decided to fly off and wrap itself around a pulley resulting in it having to be cut off. They promptly set forth to get a replacement belt. It was now 1.30pm and they finally took my blue sprinter van for a test drive to check all was ok; I hastily rescheduled all my visits for the rest of the day and was ready to jump in the van on its arrival back. The proprietor said they could not get an exact fan belt but it should get me to Scotland where I should get the correct belt fitted as soon as possible handing me a pulley saying they will need this to put back on! So off I went holding his business card in my hand in case I broke down again.

She was running really well until I reached the Dales, where the belt screamed from time to time my mobile phone had no signal and the time was marching into late evening, but hey she got me up to Scotland and by 11pm I was tucked up in bed. I had several deliveries to do over the following two days so I didn't make it to a Mrec garage, well she wasn't losing too much water and the fan belt only screamed when I started off! So Sunday morning we set off back my trusty blue sprinter and I taking it very easy a big 55mph all the way down the M6, A66, A1 and the good old A17.

I would normally use nearly a full tank of diesel to get back, interestingly at 55mph, it might have added an extra 2 hours to the journey, I only used less than half a tank this time. HOW GREEN IS THAT!

I just hope that the super tankers shipping tons of choir (for my green compost) from the other side of the world travel at half throttle to help save the planet.

Hey have you tried the new Mycortex yet? We are getting fantastic results with it.

Happy Gardening

Quaymount Nurseries

The Row,

Wereham

01366 500691.

Paul Markwell