JEARRARD'S HERBAL
Thats enough introduction - on with the plants!
To navigate this site use the links above or the detailed links at the bottom of this page.
... out in the garden.
11th May 2025
Camellia 'Night Rider' .
I suppose that gardeners spend their lives kidding themselves. It will be even better next year, it almost made it this time, if I tried hard enough I could fly.
No, better scrub that last one. It has been a frantic time and the self-delusion of the week is that it was ever different. Spring has burst (very thoroughly)
and thrown itself into the path of the grinder of summer. I have been planting things in the garden with a desperation born of anticipation.
So many things so little time. I had it all done, watered everything in, but this is the season of maximum temptation. With the garden finally planted for the year
I went out to a nursery last weekend and came home with a car-load of temptation and trouble.
Never mind, all planted, all watered (all passion spent). Then the joyful rain fell and sealed success into the ground. Hopefully.
And hope is where things stand with Camellia 'Night Rider'. It's a slow, fragile, obstinate thing, liking what it likes and nothing else.
The flowers are magnificent in blood red perfection and the foliage sparkles with purple reflections. My plant didn't flower this year.
I bought another last week and this is it.
11th May 2025
Roscoea cautleyoides 'Early Purple' .
I have been looking at the potted Roscoea in the greenhouse, frightened that they will start to grow. They need splitting and repotting
and there hasn't been time. They just need to stay dormant for a few more weeks and I will get there.
Out in the garden the first R. cautleyoides are flowering, both 'Early Yellow' and 'Early Purple'. If I had time then I would introduce
them and try to get a strain of early Roscoea, but then things would be even more frantic. If they want a liaison they will have to
arrange it for themselves. The plants are all muddled together in the new herbaceous border but I might put in a marker and keep an eye open for seed later.
We had a splash of rain this morning and the plants will appreciate it. I'm hoping that there are plenty more still to appear,
I planted a lot in the border and it would be very pleasing to see them prospering. Mostly pleasing because they are very lovely
but there is a part of me that will be pleased because they're doing it without needing anything.
11th May 2025
Rhododendron 'Halopeanum'.
I have been in this garden for a few decades now, which is a marvellous luxury. There are few corners that I haven't changed beyond recognition.
I might say that the litte garden in front of the house is much as it was when I moved in, but then I remembered that
I raised the soil level by two meters on one side. The original planting wasn't lost, it was buried.
However Rhododendron 'Halopeanum' was here when I arrived and it still going strong. It is a very old cultivar and it may have been planted a very long
time ago, there are no records. Every year the prospect to the north turns pink in late spring, a simple and delightful thing.
All that it asks is that I don't cut it down and dont bury it. That's not too much to ask. I don't have a handy digger to call on these days
so I think it is safe.
For many decades it grew divorced from its name, but 'Halopeanum' is my best guess to date. It's still open to revision but I'm not working very hard at it.
11th May 2025
Camellia rosthorniana 'Elina' CUPIDO.
The camellias are still flowering. Some with the dogged determination of a film actor clinging on to youth, others with a disregard for time that is
easily forgiven in the young and beautiful.
'Elegant Beauty' comes firmly in the former group. Whatever happened to baby Jane? 'Scented Sun', 'Drama Girl' and 'Debbie' are all there with her,
cheering hoarsely with cracked voices to celebrate youth-in-aspic.
Camellia rosthorniana 'Elina' belongs in the latter group. The fragile flowers have a perfect poise and waft onto the stage when they
are ready. The poor plant suffers in the winter but I am beginning to think it defoliates just to enhance the drama. Storm Darragh tore the leaves
from one side of the shrub but you would hardly know it now.
So it dallies tremulously in front of the frantic, grinding heat of summer as though there wasn't a care in the world.
It rained this morning, and suddenly there wasn't.
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.
I have a lot of good intentions when it comes to updating this site, and I try to keep a note
about what is going on, if you are interested.
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