If you’ve visited The Lost Gardens of Heligan you’ll probably remember the little ledge in the bothy near the pineapple pits where the garden boy used to sleep.   It was his job to stoke the fire that kept the pineapple pit warm through the night, and he slept on the little stone shelf so that he was nearby when the fire needed attention.

It was tough in horticulture in those days!

The plight of that bothy boy often comes to mind when we find ourselves facing adverse working conditions;  not because anything we have to face comes near the conditions faced by victorian gardeners, rather as a consolation that whatever happens, we’re so much better off than they were.

Brrrr

And so today we found ourselves contemplating the lot of that poor garden boy once again.  We decided to water some of the plants in one of the tunnels, and found ourselves smashing through a layer of ice to get to the water in the butt.

At midday, second week of March.   The weather continues frustratingly victorian!

Cold and dispiriting for us, very confusing for the plants.   Days are lengthening, and day time light levels have been good.  The plants want to grow – but temperatures in low single figures by day, and well below zero at night leave them thinking a bit longer in hibernation is in order.

It’s going to be one of those years where a late start is followed by explosive growth when the weather finally warms up.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 19:55 and is filed under Life on the nursery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.