JEARRARD'S HERBAL
27th August 2023
Colchicum x agrippinum
Without any clear change, autumn has mellowed. The end of August was sunless and wreathed in drizzle. When it rained, it was cold. When it wasn't raining it was almost oppressively hot.
Summer, if that's what we are going to call it, was hard and spiky and uncomfortable. Autumn has softened. Yesterday I sat in the garden through sunny and cloudy intervals.
It was very pleasant, the sun was comfortable, the shade was comfortable and the rain was imperceptible. I got on with some garden tasks, and enjoyed it.
For the first time in months it didn't feel as though I was snatching a hasty moment to get things done before conditions became really unpleasant.
Colchicum x agrippinum is almost a barometer of equability. The buds appeared above ground on Wednesday and were in full flower yesterday. I am still clearing the ground
of summer's excess in the places where the spring bulbs will come up. Flowers at the start of September are inconveniently early, but it is so delightful to have them
that I take care to clear the ground over them in July. I would grow a lot more, but I would never keep on top of it. I was weeding over the top of Arum pictum
yesterday evening and nearly pulled off the new shoots as they broke through the ground. It's another small corner that I must remember to weed in the summer heat
and not wait until it is a nice job to do.
27th August 2023
Gladiolus carmineus
The Nerine house managed to moderate conditions through the warmest part of summer. It gets warm in there, but it doesn't roast. I'm not sure why, but a large open door
on the uphill side helps a lot. I water the Nerine every couple of weeks through the dormant season. I don't want them to be wet, but I don't want them to desiccate either.
I don't know if it makes any difference, the first flowers seem to come up at the end of August regardless of what I do. I plan to go through the dormant pots and weed them thoroughly
in July while it is easy. I manage to do it about one year in ten. It's a boring, sweaty, sticky job and it is breathtakingly easy to put it off. It's too late now,
there are flower stems coming up all over. It would be impossible to avoid damaging them.
I have a couple of Gladiolus species growing among the Nerine. Gladiolus tristis put itself into a Nerine pot and the two plants co-exist very well.
G. carmineus has a pot of its own, but it grows on the same winter rainfall pattern as the Nerine. When it produces seed I scatter it among the Nerine pots
and perhaps in a few years I will have a field of colour from it.
27th August 2023
Hedychium 'Tara'
I have about fifty Hedychium growing in tubs in the greenhouse. They look at me balefully. They need to go out into the garden, but there are a lot of them and suitable spaces in the garden are limited.
I can't think of a solution so I am paralysed into inactivity. The best way forward would be to plant one or two where it was possible, and over the months and years they would slowly
end up in the garden. I know that is the way to do it, but I can't quite start. It seems like a very long job but I shouldn't put it off any longer.
More than half of the plants in the collection were planted out a couple of years ago. I cleared a new piece of garden specially for them. In my innocence I had hoped that they might all fit into the space.
I chose to accept that they wouldn't, and planted half the collection at a decent spacing rather than cram them all in. It was a good decision, the plants in the garden have grown vigorously,
they look magnificent and the clumps are starting to approach each other. I have to decide if I am going to chop them back as needed, or allow them to mingle. I had hoped to put off that decision for a
few more years but it is creeping up on me rapidly.
On the plus side, the larger the clumps grow, the more magnificent they look. H. 'Tara' is a good thing. In a pot it reliably produced a few flower spikes that were enough to astonish.
Outside in the garden it has changed character. It doesn't simply astonish, it bludgeons bewildered moderation into spectacular submission, shouting its victorious orange battle cry.
They would all be better outside.
27th August 2023
Zingiber mioga
Zingiber mioga has suffered in the greenhouse for not being a Hedychium. It doesn't need protection, it would be much happier in the ground,
but every time I think of somewhere to plant it I think that the space would be better for a Hedychium. In the end, I don't plant either.
I need to get a grip.
In the middle of summer I got so tired of the log-jam of planting that I took some spare pots of Z. mioga and shoved them at random into the new herbaceous border.
It wasn't possible to water them in, they just had to take their chances. Fortunately August has been wet, I noticed them yesterday growing away gently.
They aren't flowering like this one in the greenhouse, but I am confident that they will grow a lot more strongly next year. It is completely deciduous,
so it fits in well with the rest of the planting - the border is stripped bare in December to leave space for the Crocus to flower in February -
if the squirrels have left me any Crocus corms to flower!