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Only 4 days now left to visit us before we close for the 2021 season.
Its been a crazy year again this year, continuing on from the pandemic madness of 2020. This year we began our season with a lockdown as we approached our usual opening date – but 6 weeks later we were able to open to the public.
This year has seen an overwhelming number of people visiting Cornwall and we have experienced lots of visitors; some familiar and lots and lots of new faces too.
We kept our Booking system despite the additional work that this entailed for myself and our Shop staff – but despite the extra workload it really allowed for visitors to feel safer when they visited us – knowing we wouldn’t be too busy at any one time.
Although restrictions were legally lifted earlier in the season – we kept our Covid policies in place – asking for masks to be worn in our gift shop for example and I have to thank everyone who abided by our caution and protected other visitors by doing what they could. You have all been amazing.
With Covid case numbers soaring in Cornwall during the summer it was a worrying time for everyone and I think that people really appreciated our cation and our want to protect each other during this time – the majority of visitors have been so wonderful.
Of course – like so many other businesses – we ran in to a few difficult customers this season who found the pandemic rules and requests a struggle to abide to, but luckily these people really stood out, and made everyone else glowing examples of human kindness and understanding 😉
Stock has been another huge challenge this year – with Bonsai deliveries being hugely delayed, prices soaring and many species (usually stocked) completely impossible to source. At one point our Indoor Bonsai House was near to empty!
Our sculpture and outdoor concrete was a similar situation this season with many delays to get our order and customers awaiting the arrival of many of our favourite pieces such as the pagodas and Buddhas.
We lost several of our treasured Koi carp this year too – for unknown reasons. Even our biggest and most beautiful female. Which broke our hearts. But happy to say we have spotted around 20 baby koi in the last couple of months which has put a smile back on our faces.
It has certainly not been a ‘normal’ year for us here that’s for sure.
Our small team of staff have handled everything this year has thrown at them with amazing resilience, patience and understanding and I honestly don’t know what we would have done without them – thank you from the bottom of my heart to you all.
Today I took quick walk in the garden to capture a few shots of the plants (particularly the Japanese maples to see how far along they are in their autumn colour transformation and these can be seen below.
The colours are all getting there with a few looking stunning already but I suspect we won’t see the peak until after we close for many of the varieties. We think the warmer weather this autumn has allowed many of the leaves to stay green for longer, but it was lovely to see so many of them now turning.
