JEARRARD'S HERBAL
19th March 2023
Camellia cuspidata .
I was talking to a man from Gloucestershire yesterday who could just see the first signs of spring in his garden. I said nothing. To be fair he was talking of poetic spring,
populated by frolicking lambs under a blue sky, but we have had spring for the last six weeks. Real spring at least. Sunshine, rain, mist, wind and perfect moments
when the sun soars through the sky like a singing skylark. It has been a spring week, very variable. At times the heavy mist has dripped from every surface
and yesterday I saw the first baby rainbow of the year as the sun chased off the retreating rain. The garden seems to enjoy it.
Camellias have launched the big display of the year. I have heard comments that the drought last summer has reduced bud-set this year but I'm not sure.
The earliest cultivars have been very prolific and I would have thought that they would be hardest hit.
Every year I see a few cultivars in the garden with ugly flowers, and I wonder why I tolerate them. I think the answer is that I have the situation back to front.
I wonder why they tolerate me. Camellia cuspidata (a cutie, not a monster) grew far too big in a pot and was well rooted into the ground. It had to be moved, so I yanked it up,
cut off the errant roots, cut the trunk in half and planted the remaining stump on top of a Cornish hedge. I don't know how it survived but three years later
it is in flower again. I don't know why it tolerates me, but I am very grateful.
19th March 2023
Erythronium dens-canis 'Old Aberdeen' .
The fields are full of daffodils, and the pickers are out there in all weathers bringing them in. The landscape is speckled with pools of gold where
the flowers haven't been gathered. Even in Gloucestershire the supermarkets are filled with bunches of Cornish spring sunshine.
I have very few daffodils in the garden that celebrate the peak of the season, there are fields aplenty around me if I want a burst of colour. My local garden centre has
"sponsored" the verge outside my house with yellow flowers, and that is enough.
The snowdrops that remain stand in the rain like a bedraggled group of protesters against a lost cause. They mean well, they deserve respect, but the moment has passed.
In the Erythronium bed the ground is fraying as the new shoots push through. E. dens-canis has produced thick tufts of leaves and fat buds have emerged.
I thought that 'Snowflake' would be the first to open, but I can't even find the buds now. 'Old Aberdeen' has opened, heralding the start of a new wave of colour.
The small jewels of early spring will soon be swamped under the trees as E. 'Pagoda' emerges. I am hoping that the drought last summer has suited them.
It is possible that it was too dry and harsh for them, but the fraying ground suggests otherwise.
19th March 2023
Nerine undulata 'Fish River Pass' .
The floral season has its surprises. Once the Nerine season ends I tend to abandon the Nerine house for a while. The drama was too intense,
it is a relief in some ways that it has ended. I watered the pots a month ago but I was shocked to find that they had dried out again.
I shouldn't have been surprised, the leaves are fully expanded and the sun has shone occasionally, but it hasn't been particularly warm, even under cover.
The only colour in there comes from 'Fish River Pass', a late flowering N. undulata form from South Africa. Mine were raised from seed and there
is a subtle variability among them. I can feel the urge to select the best ones creeping up on me. This one has broad, pale tepals. I have another that is darker
but more spidery. I will mark the bulbs in anticipation of the dormant season.
I would like to grow some hybrids between this and N. sarniensis, more from curiosity than anything else. There is nothing else in flower. I am wondering if I can store pollen
in the fridge until August, when the earliest of the N.sarniensis forms might appear. I am not confident, but I have bought some
gel-capsules to store pollen in. It is worth giving it a try.
19th March 2023
Magnolia x loebneri 'Leonard Messel' .
Around the village, magnolias are creeping into flower. They don't burst onto the scene suddenly like cherries or Forsythia,
the trees slip slowly into colour as though the seeting sun had coloured the twig tips. The fat buds are grey-green and almost
inconspicuous. They slowly add visual weight to the shape of the trees and the flowers seem to ooze from the tips of them, frosting the
edges of the trees with colour.
At the bottom of the village M. campbellii has taken the next step, shedding the bud bracts in a display of incomprehensible cerise.
It is astonishing. In the garden, 'Merrill' has reached a peak of flowering. It looked exactly like this when the snow fell in January
so this is a second moment of wonder. I have two of these trees, planted nearly 40 years ago. At the same time I planted the pale pink
'Leonard Messel' beside them. Neither of the 'Leonard Messel' established. I have planted three more since then and I still
don't have a live plant to show for it. I would love to have its delicate pink flowers shower the ground with petals in the spring winds
but it hasn't worked out.
I have just bought another. As they say, fifth time lucky.