The biggest pot I've ever sold!

This picture doesn't really give a sense of how big it is: inside the wooden liner that the client had made is a 1.5m diameter and 90cm deep fibreglass liner, and the plant (my favourite Dracaena Surculosa - looks like a kind of spotty bamboo) is 2.5m high!

The quantity stats were pretty impressive too: 13 x 50l bags of the clay aggregate we use as drainage, plus 17 x 75l bags of compost, and to surround the main plant another 30 small plants of various species.

Nicer still, for once we were working only a couple of miles from our base at Stewarts Country Garden Centre in Wimborne, and in a lovely new office building. As loyal readers will know, we cover Dorset, Hampshire, Wiltshire and parts of Devon, Somerset, Sussex and Surrey. So a five minute commute is a refreshing change.

Even better, the client commented afterwards "Everyone has commented positively on the planters, thanks for being so efficient", so our efforts were appreciated.

Jonathan's best customer...

...which is deliberately ambiguous. They are my best customer because it's the Gainsborough Arms, the fantastic village pub at the end of my road, but - regrettably for my liver - I'm one of their best customers.

So I was very happy to be asked to provide hanging baskets, later some shrubs in pots to delineate their outside seating area, and finally some large pots with shrub roses in. i later recruited my next door neighbour (a talented gardener) to look after these roses - in return for beer.

Got to love village life! As the landlord & landlady: Denny and Mecky are following my basket care instructions closely, the baskets are now thriving like few others I have seen; they do the work and I get the credit.