The GC Diary
JULY 2021.
Often, my friends ask me what it is I actually ‘do’ at the garden centre. I’m always quite surprised that it isn’t obvious how much we have to do on a daily basis just to keep everything looking in top condition. So, I have been thinking about writing some entries into a blog for quite some time. The other factor which has motivated me to write it is the interest our fans and followers have shown on social media on anything about our team or the occasionally ridiculous questions we have been asked. In the interest of keeping things fresh, of showing my friends how much we do in a day and of entertaining you guys with some of the brilliantly bonkers stories we have – here goes my first attempt at writing about daily life down at the GC.
One of the highlights of our day is usually the customers. It’s what most of us will spend a good 70/ 80% of our day doing; helping people find a plant, helping them work out what flowers will work in their space, or giving them advice on how to save something that is looking a bit sickly in their garden. It’s also an incredibly satisfying part of the job, especially when a customer sends you pictures of their finished garden, or writes a review to tell you how useful your advice was. However, there are also some bizarre requests, and quite frankly, some people with very odd ideas about gardening. There’s also customer ‘types’ that we can spot. The men with young kids who want to be in and out as quickly as possible, the older ladies who like flirting with the boys who carry out their compost, and dare I say it, the Karens …. However, one of my favourite types, is the man who is shopping for his wife. There are several sub-types to this category, but the largest of these is the ‘I daren’t buy anything without my wife’s approval’ sub-type. It has been scientifically proven that this type, in fact, accounts for 70% of the male population.
This week I was approached by a young man, towering over me, with huge biceps popping out of his tank top. His request was to help him find some plants for a border he was planting for his wife; ha had strong ideas about what he wanted, indeed, I quote ‘and I’ll have none of that flowering wank’. From this, I could infer that he meant he only wanted evergreen shrubs, and so I showed him a fine selection of plants that are good for leaf colour and that would add some punch to the space without the need for lots of flowers. He eventually settled on some choisya and pieris, and thanked me for my help. About five minutes later, I spy the tell-tale signs of the wife phone call. What I call ‘the confirmation call’. You see this most commonly around Christmastime, with men checking that their tree lights are the correct colour. But here he was, bulging biceps and tank top, with lowered voice, pacing around like a prisoner. About five minutes later I see him end the call, and replace the choisya and pieris (I thank him for taking the time to put these back in their rightful place), and then pass me again. But this time, above the brick wall of the ramp, I can see some little pink and apricot dahlia heads bobbing about as the trolley makes its way up the ramp, of course, this is big burly bloke swapping his not ‘wanky’ evergreen perennials, with a beautiful selection of summer bedding plants! Always love a total design change – especially when it takes place after a five minute phone call haha. After all the effort he put in I really hope his wife liked it!
Simon and Jenna enjoying a well earned drink!
Meanwhile, out of the centre, Simon and Jenna have taken an unusual commission and are decorating a bar that is about to open in Pontefract with an artificial floral arrangement on the ceiling. They spent a full day doing just half of the ceiling, and had a bit of a palaver even finishing that before the England game kicked off. Fortunately, they made it back for the second half (and a couple of pints) – and what a second half it was! So all in all, a great day for them. We’ll show you some pictures when it’s finished so you can admire their handiwork.
However, the end of the month was more troublesome. Our compost finally arrived on the Thursday (hurrah!) after it had been delayed four times, so we were pretty hyped that we can finally give you guys the bags of Jack’s you’ve been waiting for. However, less exciting was the imminent break down of the forklift the moment it arrived. I’m not sure how familiar our readers will be with the process of unloading stock if you aren’t in retail, but essentially it involves getting a forklift, approaching a lorry, lowering the goods, driving them about a 4m distance and depositing it into the relevant section of the shop. This is only for heavy things like compost and gravel, we unload delicate plants by hand. Anyway, today as Simon put the key into the forklift, it managed to snap off, leaving us with ten pallets of compost to lift down by hand. Imagine playing jenga, only with 60 kilo pieces and bam, there you have unloading compost by hand. Taking it off, putting it back on to a pallet, and wheeling it over with excruciating difficultly. It’s a great drinking game though. By drinking game, I mean drinking of water game. Because it’s 25 degrees outside, the heat is reflected by the tarmac, and this is an intense workout at the best of times. We have a great team – and by great I mean composed of young boys who want to competitively prove they’re stronger than the others. So it got done in basically no time at all. Big thanks to the boys on that one. You’re all equally strong, don’t you worry!
So that was our week. There were some more bizarre tales from it, but I feel this is a long enough entry and I don’t want to bore you with too many of the, frankly, weirder tales from the week. If you’ve enjoyed reading do let us know if you would be interested in us continuing the series or would rather we just stick to giving advice … or if there is something totally different you want us to talk about!
Over and out from the GC x