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The Dead Label and Flowerpot Society

© Michael Campbell

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After the one-week of good weather we are back to the rain again. The heavens opened and heavy rain lashed the garden for days with just small periods of sunshine. Gardening was out of the question, so I decided that it was time to start on the long overdue task of cleaning out the potting shed. With just a cats path down the middle of the shed after all the summer activity of basket filling, potting on the Primulas and Cyclamen, and taking cuttings, this task was certainly overdue.

My potting shed is a little on the large side for such activity, but as anyone who has ever packed a suitcase will know, you always try and get more into it than it was designed to hold. The benches that are erected round three sides, much like a fitted kitchen was the obvious place to start.

First the propagators which had not been in use since the spring had to be removed and placed in their winter quarters on the top shelf. Then there were a lot of polystyrene fish boxes; they were intended to be made into alpine troughs, covered with wood glue and then hypertufa. How did I forget about them? It is planting time now and it will take weeks for them to cure, so I won't be able to plant them up until springtime.

Now it was time to remove all the potting materials. A bag of coarse sand, a bag of silver sand, a large container with wheels on it half full of fine grit. One steel dustbin full of coarse grits, a bag of leafmould, two bags of recycled compost. One large flowerpot full of charcoal, one bag of vermiculite and one bag of polystyrene. Then there was a bucket of lime and a bucket of bone meal. One bag of commercial potting compost and one of lime-free compost. Do I really need all this stuff to grow a few plants?

I was finally able to reach the bench with the crockery pots on it. The crockery pots range from twelve inches down to two inches with a range of half pots and alpine pots in between. It didn't take more than half an hour to sort those out, and then the big headache, plastic pots.

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