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.
20th September 2009
Cyclamen hederifolium .
A week a beautiful weather. For the first time in months the ground is starting to dry out, which makes walking round the garden an
unspeakable pleasure. Under the trees, the Cyclamen are going from strength to strength. I have had a couple of attempts to take
some decent photographs and I have messed it up a couple of times. Mid week I was stunned by the beauty of the shafts of late
evening light striking them from the side, but by the time I fetched a camera it was too dark. The following morning I tried to repeat the effect
with the early morning sun, and got nothing but over-exposure and large pink shapes that looked like alien spacecraft landing in the mist.
This picture was taken this afternoon, wandering around with a camera and a notebook. I'm not entirely converted to the cause of Cyclamen
but they do have some marvellous moments so I might have to rethink my views.
Juggling a camera and a notebook to record the pictures I have taken means that I tend to scribble illegible and abbreviated names with a ball-point,
and end up with as much ink on my hands as on the page. Thanks to the friend who pointed out that in my haste I had described this
as 'cyc hed', which is a more scathing criticism than I intended!
20th September 2009
Impatiens scabrida .
The burst of fall sun (I am pretending to be American for a moment - bear with me, there is a reason) has meant that the greenhouses need to be watered
more than they did at the height of summer. I am still trying to make new benches , I should have sowed the Hellebore seed,
taken autumn cuttings, and potted a lot of plants from the open ground, given to me a fortnight ago and dumped straight into a barrel of water
to preserve them. A little bit of everything means that the week has felt very abbreviated, but it was the notepad that amused me most.
This featured on the list as imp scab, and I'm not going to speculate about how you get those (or how you cure them).
It is an annual species, but it seems to produce seedlings in the greenhouse without needing any help from me, which is fortunate
because I am hopless at remembering to collect seed, and if I collect it I forget to sow it. Fabulous large yellow flowers and entertainingly explosive seed pods.
I was thinking of showing Hedychium 'Himalayan Lipstick' here, but I chose 'imp scab' over 'him lips' .
20th September 2009
Hedychium coccineum .
The Hedychium are in full (ish) flower. The deciduous ones have gone over, for the most part, but the evergreens are all on the point of bursting into
fragrant floral clouds. A number of forms seem to be flowering early this year, but it also looks as though many will not bother at all.
It may be a consequence of the hard winter, or the warm spring, or it may just be chance.
H.maximum has just produced its first flower of the season, as has H.gracile. This form of H.coccineum comes into the colour range
that has been called var aurantiacum, but unfortunately in my notebook I refer to it as 'Coc'.
20th September 2009
Oxalis regnellii 'Fanny' .
The Oxalis regnellii forms will reliably produce flowers throughout the summer and a number have now been named (mostly to suit the needs of
the dry bulb trade). I keep a few of them under the bench in the greenhouse and this is probably my favourite. The soft pink flowers stand out well
against the dense leaf cover and look better to my eye than the white flowered forms.
And why the uncharacteristic adoption of Americanisms? Well, discretion is the better part of valour (that should probably be valor shouldn't it?).
In my notepad I referred to this as 'Ox Fanny'.
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.