legends · 4 min read ·
Plant Tags
Garden-centre labels name plants for the dead members of one family, and a rose for the living one.
**Hollins Garden Centre · Stock Labels, Aisle 4 (Perennials)**
*All plants are grown on site. Please water daily. Repot when roots reach the edge of the pot.*
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**Label 4-01**
*Delphinium "Pale Hester"*
Height: 90 cm · Flowering: June–July · Light: full sun
*Planted for: Hester Price, 11 Lowry Row, 1964.*
**Label 4-02**
*Michaelmas daisy "Owen's Blue"*
Height: 60 cm · Flowering: September · Light: partial shade
*Planted for: Owen Price, 11 Lowry Row, 1966. Do not plant near the back wall.*
**Label 4-03**
*Foxglove "Ada"*
Height: 120 cm · Flowering: May–June · Light: dappled
*Planted for: Ada Price, 11 Lowry Row, 1971. Toxic if eaten. Do not let the cat near it.*
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**Stock record (Hollins, 2 Oct)**
Labels 4-01 to 4-03 are not in the catalogue. The plants have been delivered from the glasshouse without an order number. Each plant was found sitting in a clay pot, on a bench, with a name card attached. The names match the labels. The pots were filled with soil from the same garden, Lowry Row, which has not been sold to us.
Staff note: the soil in the pots is damp. There's a small, unmistakable handprint pressed into the top of each pot, as if someone had tried to hold the plant upright while the roots settled.
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**Customer complaint (Robert Price, 4 Oct)**
I bought three plants from aisle 4 for the garden at Lowry Row. Labels said my mother's name, my sister's name, and my own. I didn't realise until I got home. We've never had a garden there. The house was sold in 1971, when my sister died.
The plants have come up in the back garden overnight, in rows, taller than they should be. They face the kitchen window. The foxglove has a tag tied to the stem with a faded ribbon, and when I looked closer the tag had my name on it and a date in the future.
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**Hollins stock record (5 Oct)**
Returned to glasshouse: Delphinium "Pale Hester," Michaelmas daisy "Owen's Blue," Foxglove "Ada." Customer has been refunded in full.
Plants have not been reshelved. They are on the bench, facing the door, tags turned to the wall.
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**Label 4-04 (new, unrequested)**
*Rose "Robert"*
Height: 180 cm · Flowering: June · Light: full sun, sheltered
*Planted for: Robert Price, 11 Lowry Row. Please water daily. Do not cut back. This plant needs the people it was grown for.*
*Note: label was printed on the store's own label machine, which was switched off at the time.*
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**Customer complaint (Robert Price, 12 Oct)**
The rose is in the middle of the lawn now. Nobody planted it. It's taller than the house. It's come up through the grass with a single thick root that goes down under the patio, and when the wind blows it leans toward the kitchen window, where my mother used to stand and wash the dishes, and now there's a figure there instead, looking out.
I don't want the rose. I'd like it taken away. But the garden centre won't come, and the staff say the plant is "established."
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**Hollins internal memo (14 Oct)**
Please do not sell any plants with names on the labels. Please remove all labels from the aisle and put them in the store room. Please do not water the plants in aisle 4 by hand.
Note: the watering can in aisle 4 has been filled every morning by someone who is not on the staff roster. Staff report the water is always warm.
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**Final stock note (Hollins, 27 Oct)**
Aisle 4 has been cleared. The benches are empty. The clay pots are stacked in the glasshouse, each with a name card in the bottom.
Robert Price has returned to the centre. He asked for a label. We printed one for him, and he read it, and then he asked us to add a line at the bottom: *Repot when roots reach the edge of the pot.*
Hollins closed its glasshouse in November. The clay pots were sold at auction to a landscaper in Millbrook. The auction catalogue lists them as *unnamed, damp, undamaged*.