JEARRARD'S HERBAL
28th August 2022
Nerine masoniorum .
The grass has started to grow again. I last mowed about six weeks ago and now the paths are looking tousled. They aren't yet unruly but they could do with a quick trim.
That has been the impact of the rain. We haven't had a lot, but it has seeped into the ground and refreshed everything. Many of the hydrangeas have lost lower leaves
but the top leaves are looking perky. A fortnight ago the flowers uniformly had a hang-dog expression. Now they have resolved into two groups, those that have burnt and
those that have rejuvenated.
Temperatures have moderated, the evenings are drawing in and autumn is waiting for an excuse to deck a crisp morning with sparkling dewdrops.
In the greenhouse, the Nerine are responding to the call to bloom. A couple of early flowering species have started, the best of them is N. masoniorum
which can rapidly fill a pot with grassy leaves and then top them with a froth of fragile pink blossom.
I have been trying it outside and it seems to be hardy here but the flower spikes are only just emerging. They needed the light caress of rain to wake them from
the sleep of summer.
28th August 2022
Fuchsia 'Bronze Banks Peninsula' .
I have a feeling that fuchsias are not quite fashionable. Just say the word fuchsia and watch as the conversation is guided in a safer direction. It's a bit like saying you use a bedpan
or that you skinned a brace of rabbits for supper. Somehow fuchsias belong in the past where they can be delightful and nostalgic and left well beyond reach.
Fortunately there are plenty that you might not recognise as fuchsias until it was too late.
F. 'Bronze Banks Peninsula' has bronze leaves and it was collected by the late Graham Hutchins on Banks Peninsula, South Island, New Zealand. He thought that it was probably a hybrid
but wasn't confident to speculate any further. I have grown it for decades and although it has had some ups and downs, it is still with me. My original plant died in 2018 but
I had cuttings in the greenhouse, it has returned to glory.
Perhaps "glory" is over-egging the pudding. It has returned to flowering. It had a spell in spring then rested through the summer and has come back into bloom for the autumn.
The flowers are multicoloured with pale tubes, red filaments, blue pollen and a large yellow style. Sadly, large sepals set the overall effect, which is brown.
It will never be popular, but it's a charming small shrub, as comfortable as a yawning dog.
28th August 2022
Thladiantha dubia .
Perhaps it is the overwhelming heat of the last months that has affected me. The fiery roar of Crocosmia spread through the garden last month,
an orange assault to challenge the lethargic weight of heat. For the most part I was unmoved, they flowered orange in a tan garden, missing the harmony
like a school band struggling to find the melody.
It has been the tiny details that have sustained the garden, a trembling breath of pink, a fuchsia as rich as a Christmas chestnut and a single flower from Thladiantha.
I had an idea that Thladiantha dubia might climb around the Hedychium house, leaping from stem to stem, a bristly daredevil cucumber of surprise. It hasn't been that vigorous.
Last year I persuaded it up a cane, this year it was having none of it and has trickled across the floor. It was probably looking for some moisture,
I don't think it found much. Perhaps next year it will wreathe the greenhouse with wonder, perhaps not.
I didn't think it would flower this year.
A couple of yellow blooms are a special delight like finding a pink crab-spider nestled in a buttercup.
28th August 2022
Vanda falcata .
It's all in the detail. That would seem to be the lesson to learn from Vanda falcata. It is a Japanese species of orchid that grows epiphytically on mature trees.
The species has a cult following in Japan that is spreading around the world. It is the cult of tiny detail, elegant line. The cult of the almost (but not quite) imperceptible.
I have a memory from long ago of a friends Vanda house, a jungle hothouse of wonder. A world of aerial roots and bright flowers glimpsed through the steaming atmosphere.
I have hardly ever grown Vanda and when I have it has only been a wistful attempt to make a memory more solid.
And then I discovered Vanda falcata which tolerates the chill of winter like a turnip in a clamp. It isn't ideal but it's better than being stewed.
I bought this one as a young plant and after a couple of years of modesty it has bloomed with poised elegance, gently scenting the evening air in the greenhouse.
This isn't the old nostalgia, this is a brand new one. It's a sort of instant antiquity, like the adventurers who discovered the New World and then realised it had
been there all along.
I was watering a friends tomatoes yesterday, talking to them as I went along. Not in a conversational way, just saying soothing things to calm the desiccated root.
It felt very comfortable, as though senility might be quite a nice place after all.
I'm not in the habit of giving names to plants, perhaps that is to come, but if I were then this would be Horatio.
There are more things in heaven and earth...