Home Index Web Stuff Copyright Links Me Archive

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.

4th January 2009

Camellia 'Show Girl' .
All around the garden there are buds swelling, but as usual Camellia 'Show Girl' is the first to open. I think of it as the first Camellia of spring. Much as I love the Camellia saluensis forms, they come in autumn when it is still warm, and serve as a warning that winter will shortly be arriving. This is a hybrid between C.reticulata and C.saluensis, which accounts for its early appearance, but with snowdrops and daffodils in flower , it is certainly the start of spring.
Although it is a rather loud colour, it is welcome when there is so little in flower, and I find it very reassuring. I am no longer the only fat pink thing in the garden!


4th January 2009

Cyclamen coum .
This has been in flower in the greenhouse for a couple of weeks, and looking really fabulous, but the plants in the garden have just started. They grow in a patch under an old sycamore and have grown into much larger plants than they do in pots.
Outside, I prefer these blood-curdling colours to the paler pink and white forms.
There is something very opulent about the deep magenta blooms pushing up through the fallen leaves, which the paler forms just can't match.


4th January 2009

Cyclamen alpinum .
In the greenhouse, Cyclamen alpinum has started. It used to be part of the great Cyclamen coum family and has flirted on and off with the name trochopteranthum, but it seems to have settled down here.
Distinctive splayed petals show off the colour well. I want a group of them in the garden, and got as far as pollinating the parent plants in pots, but then forgot to collect the seed, so I'll have another try this year.


4th January 2009

Helleborus x hybridus .
It has been cold and windy for the last fortnight, and I have been up among the Hellebores, improving the beds. In this case that means removing some large pine trees that are drying the soil and creating too much shade. I am hoping that when I am finished I can add some Magnolia as a deciduous canopy over the top, and get twice the flower power. A bit of a rush at the moment - some of the trees have to fall on the Hellebore beds as trhey come down, and I'm trying to get it done before too many of them start to grow.
This pale pink seedling has opened in the last couple of days and managd to dodge the falling timber!


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.