After the Mother’s Day rush things might quiet down a little but hopefully not as there is still an adequate supply of flowers of at least several thousands in the production greenhouses. With this past week’s forecast, planting has been ideal as far as temperatures but maybe not in the rain department.
Many perennials have popped out in good growth as they were formerly slow with the previously cold weather. The azaleas continue to bloom as they are now coming out in all their glory in the little viewed botanical garden to the north of the nursery.
Planting of perennials and annual flowers as well as shrubs continue behind the scenes as well as maintenance chores to the water system, grounds and back stock of trees and shrubs as we go through May.
One source of stress has been the well to water the greenhouse as under heavy use water has been available at low pressure and volume until the well recovers after about one hour. Emergency piping has now been run from the irrigation pump that pulls water from the irrigation lake to feed the greenhouses just in case of an unexpected shut down of the well. The water from the lake is filtered and chlorinated and will work in this emergency to replace the well water if need be. The long term solution is to dig another well that will supply about 30 gallons of water per minute that will be filtered. This irrigation well will be dug with a rotary drill with an industrial diamond bit and have an eight inch casing and powered by a variable speed pump to supply water under a light or heavy demand. Since the well will be located in front of the old farmhouse, it is almost impossible to dig it now because of the disruption of the entrance and exit due to customer traffic. How interesting although stressful it is to navigate around such problems but as on the old Saturday Night Live program as Roesanna Roseannadana said: It’s always something if it’s not one thing, it’s another.
Tom