JEARRARD'S HERBAL
13th November 2022
Camellia 'Winter's Snowman' .
Warm temperatures are doing strange things in the garden. The weather has been grey and damp with flashes of sunshine driven along by choppy winds.
Dahlia tenuicaulis has filled with buds, the long stems leaning and swaying when the wind hits them but, for the most part, they are staying upright.
Occasional sunny moments have lifted the tone of the garden bringing glowing colours to the Liquidambar 'Worplesdon'. I am hoping for a few days of
spectacle before the wind rips the leaves off. Lower in the garden L. styraciflua 'Aurea' has turned yellow, which is as much as it has ever managed.
A seedling L. styraciflua sheltering behind a Magnolia has transformed, the black-purple leaves shining unexpectedly against the grey sky.
In the warmth the garden has taken heart and leapt towards spring. Camellias are popping up all over. C. 'Winter's Snowman' is early, I have never seen flowers before
January. Perhaps it is just larger and flowering more freely. Their arrival was unexpected but welcome.
13th November 2022
Crocus sativus .
Autumn bulbs have been fizzing and spluttering for months. I don't grow a lot because the climate here is too wet and cool for them (I have tried to grow a lot, but that is a different thing).
There are a few that seem to tolerate conditions under a porch by the greenhouse. They have overhead cover but remain cool and ventilated. It isn't perfect
but it allows for some fizzing and spluttering as the smile of summer loses sincerity.
I have very little success here with Crocus, the ground is too soft and wet in spring and the predators of Crocus corms are too diligent and voracious.
It doesn't stop me trying for a lilac mist of flowers opening from the frosted ground in February, but it (probably) isn't going to happen.
Despite a local enthusiasm for saffron buns, the saffron crocus is as unsuited to this garden as a bulb could be, enjoying warm dry months at the end of the year.
I have tried it in a pot, in the greenhouse, on stone hedges in the garden and it is entirely reliable. It flowers shortly after planting and is never seen again.
I couldn't resist these in the garden centre last week. The flower buds were pushing against the plastic bag they were packed in. Straight into a pot, the first flowers opened the next day.
I am hoping for a couple of weeks of spluttering before they disappear forever, and I am collecting the saffron one thread at a time!
13th November 2022
Galanthus corcyrensis .
With Guy Fawkes night safely consigned to the memory for another year I went looking for Galanthus 'Remember Remember'. Last year I found it
shortly after the slugs did. I think it had produced two flowers. It was difficult to be sure from the shredded florage that was left.
With a supreme effort of optimism, I consoled myself that without flowers it would grow more strongly for the next year. It seems to be true.
I found three hanging buds yesterday. It is an early form of G.elwesii which makes it the first of the spring snowdrops in my opinion.
Spring will start tomorrow, or the day after, molluscs permitting.
Further down the bed I found G. corcyrensis in full flower and starting to spread gently after decades as a single bulb. Modern taxonomy would,
no doubt rightly, include it in G. reginae-olgae but it behaves differently. It might be simpler to say that it behaves, producing flowers outside
which my G. reginae-olgae has never managed.
Shortly the world will fill with glitter and the dark nights will echo with Ho-ho-ho's. By the time it's over the nights will be getting shorter
and the birds will be singing again. Galanthus corcyrensis is an autumn snowdrop, but it is a signpost to the spring snowdrops, which are a signpost to spring.
13th November 2022
Camellia sasanqua 'Paradise Hilda' .
I have a large garden and there is only me to maintain it. I sometimes think it is possible because I manage it intelligently. I suspect the garden
has a different view as it laughs at my conceits. Every now and then I am forced to acknowledge the failure if intelligence. It's not a malicious garden,
it smiles at my efforts benignly. At present it is the benign smile of camellias teasing me.
A few years ago, there was a log-jam of camellias in the greenhouse. They had to go somewhere, and the garden was the obvious choice. They were planted with determination,
carelessness and a touch of fatalistic obstinacy. They were going into the ground and I didn't much care where.
I didn't much care about the labelling either, which was a failure of intelligence.
So as far as I can work out from my records, this is 'Paradise Hilda'. There is a label in the ground somewhere near it, I am sure. I took a fork and went digging for it
yesterday but found nothing. I should have been more careful. Even as I planted it I knew I should have been more careful.
So the flowers smile at me benignly. We both know the truth, that the garden forgives my gormless meddling.
I have spelled it out in the interests of honesty.