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.
3rd July 2011
Disa Russet Beauty
we seem to have slipped into July with the aplomb of an olive into a martini and it would be nice to think that the summer season was well underway.
Unfortunately some of the star performers will not be appearing this year. The Canna are probably all dead, certainly nothing above ground yet,
and those Colocasia that survived are still hanging around death's door.
Fortunately a few things have been a bit mopre reliable. The Disa didn't have a good year but I only lost a couple of species. Once I had cleared out the pots
I started to check the details and found that it was the lowland species that had died. Big surprise. Might have been helpful to check on that before I killed them,
but we live and learn.
The hybrids are just coming into flower, and those that aren't are being divided and repotted. It needed doing last year and got put off in autumn, which was probably
a good thing as it turned out. This is one of the best dark reds that I have but I can't trace any details about it, which usually means there has been an
error in labelling somewhere along the way. With short stems and bright red flowers it is clearly quite close to D.uniflora.
3rd July 2011
Hemerocallis 'Gusto'
The Hemerocallis have been promising great things for weeks now, but only the odd bud has opened so there hasn't been a great display. The main season is getting
underway and the beds are starting to look colourful. I grow a lot of rather old varieties (this now qualifies as old in my eyes, it was raised before I was born)
and they seem to be more tolerant of neglect than the newer ones. Unfortunately, neglect has been the key feature of the last year. I needed to plant the potted
collection out last year and there just wasn't time. Hopefully if it continues to rain, I can get some of them out in the next few weeks and they
will be very relieved.
3rd July 2011
Impatiens flemingii
Last year I was sent a small bundle of seedling Impatiens which I potted carefully aand stood in the greenhouse. I was told they were the annual
I.amphorata but as they grew it became clear that there were a number of different things mixed together. Unfortunately I already spend as much time as I
want to trying to keep annual species going and prevent them from invading, so I left them in the greenhouse and rather ignored them.
They straggled up into flower and I assumed that was the last I would see of them. I hadn't realised that the seed had been spread as far as the Cycad pots,
so now I get to enjoy them all over again.
This one comes from the North-west Himalayas and has delicate pink flowers. Last year it was thin and weedy and didn't make much impact. This year it is a bit
more substantial, but still isn't making much impact so I'm not getting over-excited. It looks like it will continue popping up here and there
until one year it just disappears. I would like to think I would notice its absence but I'm not sure.
3rd July 2011
Rosa 'Sweet Wishes'
My garden has a rather dank and humid climate (in common with most of Cornwall) and is not best suited to roses. In some ways this is fortunate.
I'm not a great lover of them, there are too many that have disease issues which spoil the season. They would prefer more heat and less
moisture. In recent years I have been quietly enjoying the scent of a few of them and there are one or two of the older varieties that seem
to resist diseases well enough to be worth bothering with. Fortunately in recent years rose breeders have finally escaped from the
clutches of the 1950's hybrid tea rose, and started to produce plants that work in modern gardens.
I have been impressed by the modern Patio Roses. They stay small, flower freely all summer and are fairly free of disease. Naturally, they aren't all good.
I have seen some real stinkers, but they disappear from the market very quickly. Retailers can't afford to stock plants that will defoliate
through stress or disease and so the mass market for potted plants is doing gardeners a great favour by weeding out unsuitable plants.
I have enjoyed 'Sweet Wishes'. I may well plant some more. I have been impressed by 'Peachy' in the nurseries recently,
and if i can get on top of the weeding I may well give it a try.
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.