JEARRARD'S HERBAL
25th June 2023
Hemerocallis 'Black Magic' .
With the Summer Solstice safely negotiated, thoughts return to winter with a sense of relief. It is a strange fact that gardeners in a mild climate spend most of their time worrying,
fearing and anticipating winter. Perhaps we just have more summer than sense. I imagine that people with more money than they know what to do with spend their lives worrying about
losing it. I am saved from that unfortunate torture. I always know what to do with the money. I can plant something ridiculous in the garden and worry about the winter.
The garden has felt like an oven this week. The breeze picks up in the evening, but through the day the still air has been toasting foliage. Hydrangeas are teetering on collapse
just as the first flowers are opening. The herbaceous border is full of things that open in the morning with bleary eyes and remain sleepy for the rest of the day.
I can relate to that. Decades ago I had a hammock in the garden, it was an inspired piece of design. I don't think I have made a decision in the garden that I enjoyed as much.
It has gone now, swept away by the torrent of progress, but it has left a warm memory. I am old and achy enough not to try and repeat it.
Hemerocallis 'Black Magic' is filled with a similar, comfortable nostalgia for me. I planted it in a garden as a teenager and I still have it. I spent some of the money that I knew
what to do with. I still have the Hemerocallis and it is still the darkest flowered cultivar in the garden of my mind. However, H. 'Evening Enchantment' knocked my socks off when I saw
it in the week. I haven't managed to put them on again since. Too hot.
25th June 2023
Eriolarynx australis .
I am very lucky, I'm not much troubled by nightmares. I am occasionally stalked through sleep by a tiger but he hasn't caught me yet. I don't think he wants to, I think his intention is just to frighten.
I wake up in the dark, he evaporates, I go back to sleep laughing. Sleep-tigers are easily trounced.
Daymares are not so easily managed. I remember seeing a plant of Eriolarynx australis decked in ice-blue flowers in a garden just a few miles south of mine. I could never grow it here,
the frost, the winter, it's terrible. Common sense is almost impotent when it comes to daymares. I have only summoned the courage to try the Eriolarynx in the last few years and even then I have planted
it in the Hedychium house. It will be fine outside, I am sure it will be fine outside. It is easily raised from cuttings in any event.
I bought this purple one because it was darker than the blue, I could always get cuttings of that one. There is a white one as well, and I want them all. I am happy to scatter them around the garden willy-nilly,
and let them take their chances. I am theoretically happy anyway, I haven't actually done it. Dark fears of failure populate the shadows of waking thought.
I would be much easier to have a tiger in the garden.
25th June 2023
Lomatia ferruginea .
The Proteaceae fill me with images of ancient greek heroes, epic adventures, myths of life and love. I'm not sure why, they are just larger than life and at the same time smaller.
The Greek epics are full of gigantic deeds, heroic triumphs and large sunbird pollinated flowers. No, I think I have probably got things mixed up there. Greek heroes were
improbably larger than life, and so are the proteas. Tough, resilient and exuberantly triumphant in flower.
Both are also strangely smaller than life. The Greek heroes retreat to the dry pages of books at the end with a crisp snap. They don't put the kettle on or cook some fish-fingers,
they battle a legion or a Minotaur, marry a queen and retreat back into the past. Proteas do the same.
This is my second Lomatia ferruginea. The first was a marvel, from a tiny trembling seedling it established on a south slope and roared defiance at the world. As it aged,
the oiled muscularity of youth passed rapidly into sere age. It was ignominiously undermined by the overflow from a gutter and it fell with a tragic crash. I planted another.
A decade later the boisterous confidence of youth has been replaced by a rich flowering of wisdom. It is the Greek epic acted out in a hedge line. The flowers have the look of culmination
about them. The story has been played-out, the book will close with a snap. I hope the Lomatia is blown off its feeble roots with a resounding crash in the next gale, and
that it doesn't just die where it stands.
I will plant another, it's good to be reminded.
25th June 2023
Disa (Reheat x tripetaloides) .
In hot weather the garden has sunk into thought. Fortunately in the summer, the Disa sweep the greenhouse into the magical lunacy of colour. By the time the Disa end there will be Nerine.
By the time the Nerine end, it will be spring. There are a lot of colours to squeeze out, and the Disa are just the baristas to express them.
This bright pink hybrid was one of my earliest attempts to cross D. tripetaloides with other things. I wanted to find out what happened. I made the hybrid in about 2010,
at the time I was disappointed that the seedlings were all so similar. I didn't begin to understand how the various genes involved had behaved. I think I am starting to see uncertainly through the genetic gloom
of incomprehension. As I do, these clouds of startling pink flowers seem brighter. When I raised this hybrid I didn't think that the grex was worth registering, now I am not so sure. There are some good plants among them.
This one rejoices in the name "clone.6". It isn't Disa-spectacular, it is certainly no 'Evening Enchantment' but it is warmly 'Black Magic'al. "Clone.1" is distinctive, both of them deserve the dignity of a name
to identify them. If the cross is to be registered, it should be done soon before I get waylaid by the latest crop of seedlings to flower. There are some wonderful things on the point of opening.
Winter is coming, but there is an epic Disa adventure to go on first, a pink hero, possibly even a tiger. It is going to be a hot afternoon. I haven't got a hammock, but perhaps a comfy seat in the shade
will suit my purpose.