JEARRARD'S HERBAL
That's enough introduction - on with the plants!
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... out in the garden.
14th April 2024
Magnolia 'Galaxy'
It has been a week full of anticipation. The grey skies have delivered rain, but the forecast has promised some bright days. They have arrived and been astonishing.
For the first time in many years I planted red tulips in the front garden last autumn. As the sun came out they opened and were astonishing. The cultivar is 'Spryng Tide'
and I was promised that they were one of the more perennial forms, it will be interesting to see what next spring brings. Red tulips are amazing in a way that no other colour quite manages.
It has also been a week for anticipating the summer. The forecast is not predicting rain in the next week. I'm sure it will arrive, but it isn't in the forecast.
As always at this time of year, there is too much to do before the summer arrives. I want to get a lot of things planted in the garden and the opportunity is slipping away.
Yesterday I started to sort out the brambles growing under the Magnolias. There is a moment in spring when they are easier to remove. It doesn't last long, seize the moment.
I had to trim some lower branches off Magnolia 'Galaxy' to get in there. A pity to do it while there are still flowers, but the bramble clearing moment
is fleeting.
14th April 2024
Paeonia mascula ssp. mascula
At the bottom of the garden I have already missed the chance to adjust Paeonia mascula mascula. It was planted in a bottomless tub in the herbaceous border.
The tub raised the soil level and gave it better drainage as it established. It has now grown into a large clump, burst the sides of the tub and sits atop
a ragged mound of soil that will slowly erode away, leaving it exposed. I had planned to dig it up last winter and re-settle it back at ground level.
It didn't happen. Dry weather and excavation-based enthusiasm did not coincide. I think it is an altitude dependent idea. As I walk up the garden and pass it,
I remember that it needs to be done. As I come down the garden to the house, the idea evaporates.
It will have to wait until the autumn now. If the roots are exposed in the summer, I will mound some soil around them.
It hasn't flowered as freely this year as it did last. Perhaps it has just been a difficult year, or perhaps it is warning me that I need to act.
14th April 2024
Camellia rosthorniana 'Elina'
A number of plants have performed less well this spring. The daffodils had fewer flowers than normal, the display from the Erythronium has been reduced.
Perhaps it is just the season. A selection of plants from both groups are going to be lifted and divided as they die down, to see if they need rejuvenating.
They may have suffered from hot dry weather during summer last year.
Camellias have done the reverse. It is possible that the new growth ripened well during last summer. They don't develop flower buds until autumn, and by then the rains had returned.
Whatever the reason, they have been very floriferous this year.
Camellia rosthorniana 'Elina' (sold as CUPIDO) is the latest of them to bloom. It has fragile looking stems and leaves, and becomes semi-deciduous in windy winters.
It is one of my favourites. In January it always looks sad and I am sure it is about to die. It seems to pull through. It is about seven feet tall now so imminent death doesn't seem likely.
It has tiny white flowers that hang under the drooping stems. The buds are red and the young growth will be red tinged.
It is a wonderful thing, just waiting for some ghastly hybridist to come along and spoil it. I'm a little frightened that it might be me.
14th April 2024
Tropaeolum tricolor
In the magical bramble hacking spell of last spring I didn't get around to a small patch under a Lawsons Cypress, not far from the back door. It needed doing in January
and I didn't get on with it. By the time I got there, the Clematis growing there was already in leaf, and the fragile stems of Tropaeolum tricolor had appeared.
In the middle of January this year I realised that it had to be done, dithered for a week, and found the Tropaeolum threads already weaving through the bramble stems.
There's always next year. Perhaps it is a job for Christmas.
The Tropaeolum went out into the garden because I couldn't think what else to do with it. In the greenhouse it was tangling itself into everything and making life difficult.
It wasn't delighted to be planted out, but it has slowly become stronger, climbing further up the brambles every year and flowering more freely.
It reminds me that this afternoon's job must be to plant things out. There are a lot of mature ferns in pots that need to be in the ground. I might get back
to cutting down brambles this evening when it is cooler. The afternoons are too hot now - the season has moved on again.
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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