The tenant left. Poor guy was stuck in the US and could not return. The flat had to be cleared, so he got a friend to handle the shift to KGF where all his furniture was kept in a villa. However the movers could not handle the large pots of palms on his terrace so left them behind. And my sister, owner of the flat, did not want the palms there. Since they were planted inside the containers instead of in pots she was concerned the wood would rot and mess up the balcony.
Who would have thought the shifting of the palms from the tenants flat would be such a herculean task. Each pot had kgs of soil in them along with the heavy palms. When the men came they very casually said -- oh these we can handle. They literally had to bite their tongues because for half a day it was such a struggle to move it all.
First the soil on top was removed.and put into buckets. That was really hard work. Each of the four large planters had to be emptied of the soil to ¼ of the pot as the planter itself was tough to carry. Four men were employed to work on the shift along with Steve and Bonny. Hats off to them they executed the whole thing so well.
Then each palm had to be lifted out keeping its root ball intact. That was also a tough job, after which they had to be carried to my balcony. Each palm with soil around its roots weighed a ton! Poor Steve and Bonny handled that to see that they were not traumatized with the shift.
Slowly and methodically they worked steadily clearing the soil and filling the buckets one bucket at a time. Then the planter was lifted into our house to our balcony and set down. Once it was set down the palms were held in them and while another man had to shovel in the soil while another man and me picked up what fell on the ground. It was a messy job.
Luckily I had saved large sheets of plastic from some delivery done in Golden Arch and that came in handy. Laying out the plastic all the soil and mess remained on the sheets and saved the tiles from becoming dirty, giving me double work. Gave me lots of exercise to sweep up what had fallen on the ground and put it into the pots.
The move was worth it though the men grumble it has cut our already poor light. They look beautiful but seem to be rather scraggly so I will work on them. The new tenants are plant lovers so I left the smaller pots behind for them. Am glad that they are as usually plant lovers are nice people.
