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.
I thought that it was going to be a very pink week. All of the Watsonia seem to have started at the same time, even if the names are a bit confused.
I spent too long at an open day sitting in the sun yesterday, and I have also turned to an interesting shade, at least on all of the bits that show!
Slowly however, as the week progressed, it turned orange. I could say that it was the first russet tones of autumn, but it isn't mellow misty
orange, it isn't even TV-presenter-fake-tan-orange. It has been shrieky wailing 1960's-flowery-wallpaper orange. If you've turned here looking for some relaxing
flowery garden sort of gentility, then this is the week for sticking your head in a bucket!
31st July 2008
Fuchsia procumbens 'Wirral' .
There aren't any yellow Fuchsia cultivars yet, however some of the New Zealand species have yellow pigment in the sepals and tube, though
it is masked by green and red colours. Eventually, breeders will manage to separate the colour out, and the genus will produce a whole new
range of cultivars. In the meantime, this is a pure white shoot on the normally variegated 'Wirral', and the flowers are also white, with only the
yellow pigment remaining. The shoot wouldn't stand a chance of growing on its own, but it gives a good idea of what should be possible.
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3rd August 2007
Acer palmatum 'Hogyoku' .
During the week I decided to start writing content for all the pages online that I haven't finished (ha ha).
So I started at the top of the index, and immediately stumbled over Acer palmatum and realised I have nothing to say at all.
I didn't even have decent photographs. Rather than sit around in the sunny evenings trying to cobble together meaningless descriptions
of the various cultivars (which if I'm honest I only grow because they were cheap) I went out and took some new pictures. In the process I saw in the distance
the distinctive colour of approaching autumn, the light and the leaves acting loike a curious seasonal
telescope, warning of the distant battleships of winter fluttering their leafy banners of war. (It's a bit like Foot and Mouth of the metaphor, a bloody linguistic cull)!
3rd August 2007
Hedychium 'Raffillii' .
The final flash of orange comes from the first of the evergreen Hedychium to flower. I am very fond of 'Raffillii',
even when it arrives labelled 'C.P.Raffill'. It seems to come in the same general grouping as 'Tara', whether you call
that H.coccineum or H.gardnerianum, or a hybrid, or something as yet undefined - there are a lot of loose ends in the genus.
'Tara' has been enjoying a good reputation as a garden plant. In the collection here, 'Raffillii' has been equally hardy, earlier to flower
('Tara' is still being vegetative, and abstaining from sex), and flowers well on every cane, when 'Tara' manages one in three or so.
If I could only have one, this would be it!
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.
If you want to contact me, the address is infoMONKEYjohnjearrard.co.uk
When typing the address in, please replace MONKEY with the more traditional @ symbol! I apologise for the tiresome performance involved, but I am getting too much
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