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JEARRARD'S HERBAL


Thats enough introduction - on with the plants!
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... out in the garden.

8th June 2008

Disa aurata .
I was delighted to find this in flower this morning. A terrestrial South African species with small but perfectly formed yellow flowers. I was cheerfully lying in the bath this evening , looking back at the day and enjoying the orchids when I was rather shocked to realise that I was growing orchids again, and there are probably a couple of dozen species around the place. Now, I last grew orchids before puberty, and I pretty much stopped when my testicles dropped and I found better things to do. I was lying in the bath pondering this curious quirk of fate and wondering why I stopped chasing orchids once I started chasing people when a second bombshell hit me, and I realised I have never met an attractive orchid grower, and that was why I shunned them at puberty!
They vary from perfectly ordinary to dropped straight out if the ugly tree. I don't recall ever meeting an attractive one, and bugger it, I've joined them!


8th June 2008

Arisaema erubescens .
Grown from seed I sowed in 2004. This is the second year of flowering and they are getting better all the time. It seems unlikely that it is actually A.erubescens, it looks more like A.ciliatum but I'm not going to quibble over identity! I'm still trying to find a way of producing moist shaded conditions in the greenhouse - I keep drying them out too much, but I will get there in the end!


8th June 2008

Ixia viridiflora .
A wonderful pale turquoise flowered bulb from South Africa. The colour isn't produced by a pigment, but by refraction of light from the cell walls, so it can be a little fickle. The best forms have bright greenish flowers, but mine seems to be rather pale. It may be genetic variation, but it is more likely to be growing conditions (I have it in a lightly shaded greenhouse). Even in South Africa they recommend growing it in pots, although in their case it is to stop the corms being eaten by porcupines!
Easily grown from seed, but it is becoming quite rare in the wild so it is important to keep stocks going in cultivation.


8th June 2008

Oxalis laciniata .
Another one like the Ixia that could be bluer than this example, but in this case from the 'gaucho' end of South America. All of them are pretty, they have little scaley rhizomes that creep about at the surface of the compost, and need to be rather dry through the winter. I am still looking around for a good blue flowered stock. I may even have to grow some from seed!
In the rest of the garden it has been hot. The assorted ginger species are starting to grow and there isn't enough time to get everything done!


Acorus Alocasia Anemone Arisaema Arum Asarum Aspidistra Begonia Bromeliads Camellia
Carnivorous Cautleya Chirita Chlorophytum Clivia Colocasia Crocosmia Dionaea Drosera Epimedium
Eucomis Fuchsia Galanthus Hedychium Helleborus Hemerocallis Hepatica Hosta Impatiens Iris
Liriope Ophiopogon Pinguicula Polygonatum Ranunculus ficaria Rhodohypoxis Rohdea Roscoea Sansevieria Sarracenia
Scilla Sempervivum Tricyrtis Tulbaghia Utricularia Viola odorata Watsonia

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 spam from automated systems as a result of having an address on the front page.