JEARRARD'S HERBAL
Thats enough introduction - on with the plants!
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... out in the garden.
23rd November 2008
Hedychium stenopetalum .
One of the very largest of the species of Hedychium, I have heard that it will reach 12ft. For me, it reaches the top of the greenhouse
, which is 8ft and quite sufficient. I have a number of different clones that have come from assorted sources - this one came from Kobakoba
but was originally from Nature Products, where it was identified as H.forrestii.
For the first time this year, all of them are producing flower buds, so with luck I will be able to compare them. Fingers crossed because the cold weather has blown down from
the north today. Cold winds from the arctic have made the garden chilly, I had cold feet working in the greenhouse this afternoon, and it is the sort of weather that will finish the
Hedychium flowering season if it lasts for long.
23rd November 2008
Nerine 'Amy Doncaster' .
The Nerine have been good this year, lots of screaming colour. They are more or less on their last legs now, and I thought it was all over, but suddenly
'Amy Doncaster' has produced a flower spike. Supposed to be a N.sarniensis hybrid but a surprisingly subtle colour, if that is the word for it!
23rd November 2008
Ranunculus ficaria 'Dark Mottled Leaves' .
This time of year gets really confused. Autumn flowers are still putting on a strong display but the leaves have been ripped from the trees
and are still crispy enough to blow around the place and make deep piles up against the walls. Meantime, spring is clearly in preparation
and one or two early risers have appeared to check out the lie of the land.
The Lesser Celandines have been producing leaves for about a month now in the garden, and in the greenhouse a few flowers have popped up as well.
This is just a fairly ordinary plant that I picked out for it's dark mottled leaves, though it isn't of any particular note among
the best of the modern cultivars. A couple of earlier flowers would have appeared here, but they were eaten by a mollusc before I could get a picture!
23rd November 2008
Schlumbergera 'Gold Charm' .
It's still November, so although shops are disreetly loading the shelves with festive superfluities they aren't yet brazen enough to use the 'C' word.
In the conservatory there is no such tact to be seen. The Christmas Cacti are all well budded and the first of the flowers has opened.
'Gold Charm' prefers to be a bit warmer than I am able to arrange, and it shows it by producing a pink flush in the flowers. In a heated greenhouse they would be pure yellow
but I am happy enough that it survives. I tend to buy Schlumbergera in flower, as I see them, and them try to track down a name, which is
getting harder and harder as more and more new cultivars are introduced. On the plus side, many of the newer cultivars are a great improvement on some
of the old-timers, more compact, less brittle, more floriferous and (if you can imagine such a thing) brighter!
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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about what is going on, if you are interested.
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