The Rare Plant Sale

The annual rare plant sale took place on the 13th of May in Mullagh Co. Cavan about one hundred and fifty miles from here. As usual I was invited to attend albeit it very late in the season, a little over four weeks before the event, but I did know that it was on and had been preparing for some time. This year instead of arriving early in the morning and setting up the stalls as we did last year, the proprietors decided that because of the limited access to the property that it would a good idea if we arrived on the day before and prepared our stalls. Then on the morning of the sale we would just park our vehicles in the adjoining field and so avoid all the traffic congestion that occurred last year.

This turned out to be an excellent idea and everything worked according to plan.

After the usual coaxing of some of my plants into flower that were to be the main stay of my display, the careful selection of plants that I thought would appeal to the public, and the usual tedious task of writing the labels, it was time to fill the Baskets used for transporting the plants. These baskets hold exactly forty 6cm pots, and as I only possess twelve baskets that is a total of 480 plants to select, and the same total of labels to write.

While it might sound a simple enough task it actually took me more than half a day just to select and pack the plants, the rest of the day was spent labelling and making sure everything was correct.

With the van packed and everything in order for an overnight stay it was time to hit the road. As the journey was expected to take up to four hours and the time for first arrivals was 2 pm, I decided to leave at approximately 11am.

The traffic was not as heavy as expected and my two helpers that I had engaged for the trip and myself arrived at 2-30 pm and were surprised to find that there were just two exhibitors ahead of us. As the sites were on a first come first served basis, we chose one just beside a large group of trees with a good view of the lake. It only took about ten minutes to set up, as I am not known to be a person that bothers with frills and decorations.

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