A Spring Rant is Long Overdue.

It’s hard to believe but it’s Easter already and seeing as it was December last time I posted anything here a spring rant is long overdue.

Here at KB holidays are few and far between in common with most of the beleaguered British underclass known as the ‘self employed’. In actual fact I have not had a holiday, like the ones where you go somewhere nice, for OVER 30 years. Bonsai and summer vacations are not compatible and in our business winter is just too busy to get away. Not that I give a toss, I have everything in the world I need right here and the thought of having to take on traffic and travelling crowds is sufficient to persuade me to stay home. However what we do manage to achieve these days is extended weekends and bank holidays. That is a stupid idea really because when we do get back to work the effort of clearing the backlog of orders far exceeds any benefit the break afforded us. So, we tend to just work every day regardless.

After the Christmas break our workload increases exponentially. Turnover for January is typically five times what we might do in an autumn month. We go from shipping a couple of dozen orders a day at the scrag end of the year to between one and two hundred a day from January until May. These days that can include up to a thousand kilos of soil products a day and for a geriatric old bloke like me that’s a tough ask. On a good day we manually shift 5-7 tons of stuff between us however that’s the easy bit.

Ever since the governments actions to limit the spread of Covid (H’m that worked out well) our supply chains have been in crisis. Factories shut down and materials were hard to get. Container shipping prices increased up to ten-fold as the world clamoured to restore order and then on top of that we let a megalomaniac loose on eastern Europe which caused panic across the timorous markets that we allow to determine the price of pretty much everything. That’s resulted in insane price inflation although a LOT of those increases have little to do with the cost of materials and a lot more to do with an explosion in admin’ costs associated with rules, regulations and an exponential increase in UK import costs. That coupled with the cost of fuel, which is a BIG percentage of the cost of literally everything, has been killing us.

As an example let’s look at our supremely popular soil product S-Te. The manufacturer informed us that this was finished. It’s produced using propane gas and because the cost of this went into the stratosphere he pulled the plug. What followed was a frantic negotiation on my part to secure our supply. The net result was me stumping up a good five figure sum to secure many tons that would ensure our stock for a few months and I had to actually OFFER him a big price increase as an incentive. After that I can’t tell what will happen. This example was repeated multiple times for up to half our range of Bonsai Growing Media.

So I have spent a LOT to secure at least some of the supplies we are all going to need. So now I have hundreds of pallets of stock sitting everywhere from our warehouse to southern Italy. How long this will last I can’t tell. In the long term I think we are going to loose some of the staples we currently take for granted. Everything is in flux and our position remains precarious. That’s all very stressful and a lot to deal with, I don’t sleep much these days.

Here’s an example that’s still ongoing. We sold masses of Akadama this year, even at the inflated price it carries these days folk want it in the worst way. All of the regular channels were out but I managed to find several tons on the other side of the channel. We put that on the road mid-February. As of today (5 April) it’s still on the other side of the water. Somehow it’s got caught up in a simply incomprehensible web of complication caused by asshole customs agents and transport companies. I have been spending up to three days a week dealing with these Muppets and I’ve lost a good five figure sum in sales that would have helped see us through the lean summer months.

Bearing in mind our web site carries over 1500 product lines almost every single item has become an insane battle to secure supplies. Even if I can buy the items I need, moving them has become extremely difficult in most cases. Nobody in the UK answers emails or phones. Transport companies are by and large asleep. Here’s a great example. I had a delivery of tools and wire, this amounted to 4 big pallets. This arrived Ok and went into our warehouse late September. Before we could put any of it into the system I needed to get all my import paperwork in place in order to determine my final costs and therefore determine the retail prices. It took the freight agent over FOUR months just to get that out to me so the stock sat there untouched. How can it take 4 months just to get a bill?  Anyone who knows me will be laughing about now but why on earth do I have to resort to profanities before anyone will do their jobs these days? I’m so tired sorting all this out. I just want to give up and go cut grass for a living.

Still, the good news? H’mmmmm, thinking hard here………. Ho! I know, it’s spring, sun is streaming through the window, my recent bout of sciatica is finally on it’s way out and the garden is looking good.

Since we stopped selling 1500 trees a year I now have the luxury of doing my own bonsai. It’s taken me thirty years but I’m now finally back doing what I intended right at the start and it’s a nice thing to do.

I have 2-300 trees here I have kept back over the years and some are actually in danger of becoming decent bonsai. Over the years I have spent a lot of time helping other folk to do bonsai and at the same time selling all my best trees to those same folk. For too many years I have looked on enviously as those trees developed whilst mine went past on a conveyor belt like a crap parody of the The Generation Game.

Being in business today is not easy, the stress is high, the rewards are slim and the insecurity is hard to live with. A couple of my good friends have retired recently which makes me SOO envious. Foolishly I followed my heart in life and ended up in the bonsai business that’s not generated a pension for us so I will have to die in the saddle but i‘m Ok with that so long as I can do a little bonsai, ride my bikes and occasionally enjoy a Herf at my local bike shop where we can put the world to rights.

So, have a great Easter break everyone and enjoy those simple pleasures because very soon that’s all they are going to let us have!

Here’s a few pretty pictures from the last week around the garden. Enjoy. I’m off to cut the grass 😉

Graham.