This is a good moment for a little applause for the staff of my local garden shop.

Time after time, they have been giving helpful advice with a smile on their face. And I assure you my questions are not the lightest, as an ecologist might seem to have a peculiar taste for garden equipment.

Scientific gardening in Chile

My most recent complicated question involved fertiliser. What I needed was not just for any garden plant, but for our upcoming experiment in the Swedish mountains, where we want to add an exact known amount of nutrients to the soil. We ploughed through all available nutrient types, all with their small but significant differences, to find the one that suited me best and matched our goals and what we used in our previous experiments.

Adding our carefully selected fertiliser

They might have been wondering a bit about the peculiar composition and location of my garden, but they helped me with excellent advise anyway! And that is how they help  tirelessly every time.