JEARRARD'S HERBAL
20th March 2022
Corydalis solida 'George Baker' .
The unpredictability of spring is a daily delight. There is a fragile promise in the week more delicate than the care-worn ring of antique glassware. The sun has shone, the undergrowth is dry.
I was rolling around on the ground trying to get pictures of the early Anemone nemorosa flowers and stood up covered in moss and old leaves. It felt as though it hadn't rained for a month
and then I remembered that torrential rain last weekend went flooding past the kitchen door in a steady stream for hours. The sunny days have been very sunny, the windy days have been cold and windy
and the combination means the garden has dried very quickly.
Late afternoon sunshine has illuminated all the small things. The ground under the trees is alive with the suggested promise of things to come. The Erythronium leaves are a tangible example
but the message of the Corydalis flowers is more thrilling. I was young once and visited the remains of Ellen Willmott's garden at Warley Place. The ground beneath the trees was carpeted with
Corydalis cava and I was enchanted. No chance of repeating the effect on my wind-blasted hillside in wet Cornwall but enchantments can be very durable. Eventually I had some tree cover and
my thoughts returned to Corydalis carpets. Would a shimmering mat of scarlet Corydalis solida be possible? Surely not!
I invested in three tiny plants at an AGS show and have watched for years as they struggled. Two years ago it was clear that they had (for some delightful reason that I rejoice in) failed to die.
I planted another fifty. This year the original three have grown to small clumps and a good proportion of the new ones have emerged.
I don't have a scarlet mat of wonder. I have the fragile promise of the possibility of a scarlet mat of wonder, as delicate as the care-worn ring of antique glassware.
20th March 2022
Pleione Bromo .
Gardens are a process with rises and falls like a dignified carousel. There are times when the wind blows through here and the trees shake and fall like an Alton towers terror-ride
but for the most part I sit astride a wooden horse on a carousel and gently rise and fall as the seasons rotate. There are times in the dark days of December
when every flower feels like the last survivor of a doomed civilisation but then the solstice passes, the light starts to return and the heroic blooms of spring
stand tall and defiant. I wouldn't want to understate the subtle charm of twigs and bark shining in the wet winter but it is a thin gruel compared with the pizza-magnolias to come.
When the darkest days are wrapped around the garden it is hard to imagine that anything will survive. The Pleione bulbs have buried themselves deep in the compost. They need to be lifted and split,
brought back to the surface to face the new year. There is never enough time. They have had to stay where they are for another year consoled with the promise that I will feed them
more diligently this year to make up for the neglect. I will, I really will.
In January I have nothing to see in the moss covered pots, just as other growers have tidy rows in newly-potted neatness. Perhaps they are all dead, it would be my own fault.
Confidence returns with the sunshine. Buds appear, then flowers and eventually leaves. Bromo is astonishing, illuminating the pleione-bench with wonder. It isn't the first
brave flower timidly pioneering into spring. It is the arrival of exuberance, a wholesale resurgence. It is as evocative of the season as the first cuckoo will be in the next few days.
20th March 2022
Primula allionii 'Malcolm' .
During the worst winds a fortnight or so ago I lost a single sheet if plastic from the greenhouse roof. As soon as the weather calmed down I went up and replaced it
before the wind got in and ripped the whole roof off. I'm not especially fatalistic but the whole process had a sort of satisfaction. Things go wrong
but you can deal with them. Everything else in the garden has been going so well that I was getting worried there had been no set-backs. It was unnatural.
Primula allionii is an amazing example. I have been killing them throughout my time as a gardener. Primulas that come into my care have always been doomed.
It would be more efficient to drop them into the dustbin as they arrive and save myself from the false hope of a few weeks flowering.
I have been resolute. I have experimented with new techniques, I have fought off droughts and vine weevil and still killed a legion of primulas. I have developed
a raging hatred for the whole intransigent genus.
So when I hit upon a cultivation system for Primula allionii that worked for me I have had some complex emotional issues to overcome. They have been doing well for the last five years
but I still don't quite trust them. Success is a great healer of old wounds. 'Malcolm' is just an example of the pink bench space blooming in the greenhouse at the moment.
The more I look at them the more I am inclined to gloss over the past, forgive and forget.
20th March 2022
Tulipa sylvestris .
I would like to grow tulips but tulips have their own opinions on the matter. I adore the reckless enthusiasm of their colours but they have always tended to live fast and die young.
Bulbs rarely produce a flower in subsequent years, they tend to break down into tiny shoots and only return to flowering size if time and circumstance are kind to them.
Tulipa sylvestris is the only one that has a reputation for surviving. It is possibly native to the UK or at least long naturalised. I did a trial, planting a single
bulb in a tub. A decade later it has increased substantially and it usually produces a flower or two. Confronted with this glittering promise I planted a hundred more.
Two years ago they were put into the new herbaceous border and the first year was predictably magnificent. A return to glory this year was less certain
and I have been delighted with the outcome.
At the end of last year the border was a riot of dead stems and weeds. It didn't look as though it could ever be clear enough to allow the spring bulbs to grow.
The plan was always to clear it completely through the winter. I actually drove the lawn mower over it and the transformation was astonishing. The Crocus
came up (I will gloss over Iris reticulata) and the tulips have come up. The ground is filled with peony shoots and this year I can carry on planting.
The Alton Towers terror-ride of the windy season dropped a Leyland trunk on the edge of this border but in the sunshine the bobbing tulips are mounted on a calm carousel.