Bog Myrtle & Peat

Auctions are wonderful things. The slightest nod or twitch can make the difference between buying and not, and the excitement of fighting off your fellow bidders brings out the competitive child in me. There was a plant auction at Wallet’s Marts in Castle Douglas yesterday, and I was in the front row, even though most of the lots weren’t really in my line. Dozens of fruit trees, rose bushes and ugly dwarf conifers all went under the hammer and I bided my time, waiting for the silver birch trees to be called. Six eight foot birches were eventually wheeled out and I was thrilled to bid for them with only the smallest inclination of my head, but I lost my nerve once they reached the fifteen pounds-a-piece mark and a rather smug looking woman took them all.

I have read somewhere that the undergrowth generated by aspen provides fruitful habitat for woodcock, and when a bundle of three foot aspen whips were produced, I was ready to bid to the death. My death came quite quickly as the trees rapidly sailed beyond the most liberal boundaries of my budget and were snapped up by an extremely old man in an enormous flat cap. Two twelve foot weeping birches looked quite appealing, but I was advised by a man standing next to me that they are more of an ornamental breed and probably wouldn’t stand a harsh winter in the snow on the Chayne. They sold for twenty five pounds each, and although I am sure that they will look great in somebody’s garden, I was glad that I had taken the wise advice when I did.

I was ready to leave when I heard a word that made me prick my ears up and pay attention: juniper. Two heavy pots were produced and we were told that they were a shrub variety of a low growing north American breed of plant called juniperus youngstown horizontalis. They looked rather like huge, squashed leylandai plants but I didn’t care. Picturing a black grouse poised happily on each pot, I decided to throw all I had at the two bushes. A determined woman pushed the bidding up to seven pounds each, but by that time the red mist had come down and I would have been happy to trade in my car for the plants. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that. The bushes sit before me as I write.

In triumph, I was carrying my pots out of the door when the auctioneer said that magic word again. This time, he was referring to two pots of “variegated creeping juniper”, an odd patchworked plant in dark green and sickly yellow. The needles were short and prickly, and we were told that the bushes would grow to a massive spread and never more than eighteen inches off the ground. They were perfect, although I inexplicably lost my nerve again at the last minute and only bought one of them. I have spent the last twenty four hours kicking myself for my stupidity.