JEARRARD'S HERBAL
28th May 2023
Paeonia peregrina .
Spring has left the garden. The week has been hot, rather than warm. The ground is dry again and there is no sign of rain in the forecast. The bluebells are tired, they need the sharp zing of
Tulipa sprengeri flowering under the trees to conceal their decline. Nothing so far. I only have a few seedlings scattered among the bluebells, but this doesn't look like a flowering year.
As the shade deepens from the canopy of leaves overhead, colour is being squeezed out of the garden like the last toothpaste in the tube. I have very few rhododendrons here, but they are dropping their flowers.
Those that remain have bleached to white or pale pink. They are lost among the dawdling beans of sunlight that break through the gloom.
It is a surprise to find some bright detail, but it doesn't come from the over-excited pale shades of spring. There are some mature red and scarlet colours glowing sedately in their own
private corners, the biggest fish in their own particular pond. Paeonia peregrina grows just inside the Agave house door. I'm sure that it would do equally well outside
in the new herbaceous border, but it is perfectly content where it is. I am nervous about disturbing it.
The stems have grown in the unapologetic way of peonies. I am here, I am growing, I am flowering. If peonies dither then something is wrong. I dug up 'Mackinac Grand' because it was growing half-heartedly.
A nest of ants had taken lodgings among its roots, reducing the soil to crumbling dust. I have moved it to a moister position. It isn't happy to be moved in half-growth, but it is happier than it would have been.
I don't know how the ants felt about the process but the disturbed ground has miraculously smoothed again.
28th May 2023
Crinodendron hookerianum 'Ada Hoffman'.
Even the pale colours seem to have lost the fizz of spring. Crinodendron hookerianum has been decked in the dangling buds of promise since last autumn. They have finally expanded
in a bloodthirsty revolution of scarlet. I cut it back significantly last year to maintain the density of the bush so it has a strange, awkward shape. Once it finishes flowering
the new growth will fatten it up again.
'Ada Hoffman' is a pale pink form. I have tried twice previously to establish it in the garden and it has refused to take hold. The third attempt was allowed to grow for too long in a pot
in the Hedychium house. It reaches eight feet tall and had rooted through to the soil with considerable determination. I was sure that my third attempt to establish it in the garden had also failed
since it had to be removed. I cut the main stem down to a foot or so, cut the root-ball to about the same size and planted the stump in a shady corner. Astonishingly, it survived.
Crinodendron hookerianum is very tolerant of being moved, the red ones in the garden started life in front of the house. They had reached the same size when they were moved,
though I was able to take a decent root ball in their case.
The flowers on 'Ada Hoffman' were a surprise. Just a few, produced rather inconspicuously at ground level. Next year should be astonishing.
28th May 2023
Vallea stipularis .
The Crinodendron was planted in a tiny shady corner that I reserve for things that I think will struggle here for one reason or another. A white berried Coprosma
from a garden in Hayle has grown well. I think it would prefer a bit more sun, but I was worried when I planted it. Radermachera sinica didn't survive. It struggled for a couple of years,
always slipping backwards. It might still try to produce a shoot sometime in August, but it will be too late for a recovery.
Between the two things, I planted Vallea stipularis. It had grown beside the Crinodendron in the Hedychium house, and also had to be moved. That house isn't large enough
to accommodate large shrubs growing in the ground, it struggles with the remaining Hedychium. Under cover the Vallea was a long, straggling thing that produced occasional
flower heads at the end of the stems when they were large enough. In the garden it has been a little more organised. It is less straggling, the stems are almost upright. Growth is thin, but it is almost a bush.
I think that it would prefer to scramble through something else, I will try to give it a chance.
Significantly, growing outside seems to have co-ordinated flowering. Several shoots have flowers at the same time. It is thinly spectacular.
28th May 2023
Hippeastrum 'Mango' .
I have a collection of bulbs in a cold greenhouse. They would not grow outside, but they don't need any extra heat, at least with me. Over the last decade I have been slowly rationalising them.
Perhaps it is fairer to say that the Nerine have been slowly rationalising them for me. There is a small corner in the nerine house for other bulbs that haven't been pushed out yet.
Their days are numbered, but they are hanging on. Among them are a few things I am not prepared to let go of. Freesia viridis is a joy at the start of the year, Veltheimia bracteata
is a warming, friendly thing. They still share space with the Nerine because I can't think of anywhere else to put them.
The Hippeastrum were in there as well. They hated it, too dry and too cold. They were moved into a little plastic greenhouse that gets hot in summer, which they really enjoy. I bought
Hippeastrum 'Mango' in January 2009 from a garden centre. It flowered for a couple of years and then spent a decade sulking. The new greenhouse has suited it and it has responded by flowering.
The plant is looking well, for the first time in years. The consequence is that it will need re-potting shortly and it will need more space, problems that will require some thought.
It provides a suggestion of steady opulence, a reminder that the climate here is benign and comfortable after the panicked flight of spring escaping from winter.