JEARRARD'S HERBAL
Thats enough introduction - on with the plants!
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... out in the garden.
23rd November 2025
Camellia 'Show Girl' .
There has been a lot of air in the garden this week. That might seem like madness but it has been a week where the air is very tangible. It started with a heavy, cold humidity
that would have been fog if it had been colder. I did some spraying and the feeble puff of droplets seemed to fight its way to the ground. Cold drizzle blowing in the breeze
has marked the moving air with frigid precision. Finally the sun has come out and the garden has been enveloped in its crisp grip. There has been a lot of air in the garden this week.
Frost has teetered towards the garden. It didn't get here, and Camellia 'Show Girl' proclaimed the coming spring with reckless glee. The early flowers on C. 'Nobilissima'
turned delicately brown at the very idea. A swift chill in the garden may well hasten the Camellia buds from their fattening dormancy. Camellia 'Drama Girl' is loaded with juicy
fat buds like ripening greengages, an image of voluptuous excess that would seem like a peak of perfection in the stone-fruit season. 'Drama Girl', however, will cast it off as
some warm-up warbling in the winter performance. When the buds burst we will all see the real meaning of voluptuous excess.
Christmas is a season of bright camp but if 'Drama Girl' flowers early she will make Santa's sparkling reindeer look like next door's wet sheep.
23rd November 2025
Dahlia tenuicaulis .
The first flowers started to open on Dahlia tenuicaulis while the garden was heavy and dank. They glowed from a sense of sullen obligation, tossing their dripping heads as the storm of mid-week blew in.
I was worried that I would lose the tall stems in the wind but they got away with it. D. purpusii wasn't so lucky and all of one side has been crisped by the north wind. It still
looks lovely from the south, shining in the late-week sunshine, but as I drive into the car park I am greeted by the full horror of its desiccated derrière.
Dahlia tenuicaulis grows to the south of the house in an enclave of summer friends, like a community of ex-pats on the Costa del Sol. Impatiens gomphophylla is still producing strong flowers.
A few more cold nights will turn the growth pale and the year will be over. Acanthus sennii is working up to a synchronised show of scarlet flowers
but the weather may intervene. One or two sharp frosts will blacken todays sunny promise. I watered the greenhouse this morning and enjoyed the warming glimpses of sunshine. I will be happy,
on account of the Acanthus, if the cloud has blown in again by evening.
Meantime, Dahlia tenuicaulis is loaded with buds. If the wind and cold keep away for a few weeks then there will be a spectacular display. If not - well, that's why I used the picture this week!
23rd November 2025
Mahonia 'Arthur Menzies' .
At the end of October I know there are snowdrops due in the garden. The warm soil surface seems to be alive with the anticipation of their sudden appearance
in the same way that the first Colchicum throw the static complacency of August into dramatic turmoil.
I wandered through the snowdrop bed this week with a heart as heavy as the humid air. The Hydrangeas around the bed had tumbled into the antique colours
of sincere condolences. The Mahonia were spreading their buttery colours rather meanly over the brown toast of autumn and nutrition was in short supply.
Sparrows had eaten the flowers on Galanthus 'Hiemalis'.
Fortunately the low sun beamed in under the skirts of the pine trees at the end of the week. It didn't become warm, but it appeared warm and that was enough for the Mahonia.
Flowers opened with wild enthusiasm. They will shatter just as recklessly in a few days time, but I get the feeling that this was their week. I grow a number of
M. x media forms. They can be magnificent evergreens, tolerating poor conditions and still flowering through the winter with teeth gritted in a jolly smile.
Unfortunately they never quite make the headlines here but exist as a local interest story on the third page. It's a pity, but it is only 'Arthur Menzies'
that really captures the attention and even Arthur will be underlooked when the snowdrops appear around him.
23rd November 2025
Narcissus 'Rijnveld's Early Sensation'
There has been a revolution in the Narcissus meadow. The fritillaries have started to spread (after decades of delay). I was in Sainsbury's in August
and they had stupid little boxes of Fritillaria meleagris bulbs on offer. The right thing at the right moment, I planted another sixty.
Experience has taught me not to expect too much but this could still be a fritillary meadow one day.
As I planted them through the sward I suddenly realised that everything would be stronger without the grass. It was one of those moments when you realise the obvious
and lie back on the grass to contemplate the blueness of the sky in the hope that the seagulls of destiny don't view you as a target.
I sprayed the grass off and this year the bulbs will grow without competition. I think of all the interesting things I could grow there if
they didn't have the grass to contend with. I will try it this year and see if I like it, perhaps the joy of lying on the grass and being a seagull target will overwhelm me.
Either way, I am hoping that the Narcissus 'Rijnveld's Early Sensation' will approve. It isn't a strong cultivar and it is so wonderful that it deserves a break.
It has been a revolution. For forty years I have had unruly grass in the garden and not known what to do. Twenty years ago I started writing this blog about it.
This is a birthday of sorts.
To find particular groups of plants I grow, click on the genus name in the table above. Click on the "Index" box at the top of the page for the full list.
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