JEARRARD'S HERBAL
24th September 2023
Impatiens gomphophylla
Autumn has continued to exercise in the garden like an athlete "warming down" after a big race. The supple heat of summer is slipping slowly away,
leaving space for the ache of autumn. Splashes of heavy rain have hit the ground with a cold thud, speckling mud into the undergrowth.
We didn't get much in the way of summer rain this year, that steaming rain that hisses across the garden like a fresh wind but leaves the atmosphere heavy and unbreathable.
This year the rain has been misty and then suddenly muddy.
Moisture has started to penetrate the border along the house wall. Impatiens gomphophylla does well there. I think it enjoys the early warmth
and tolerates summer drought. The sun shone through its fleshy structure in the summer with an amber glow. With the arrival of moisture, it has thickened
and resolved into green leaves and orange flowers. I have tried to propagate it, but not succeeded. The cuttings I took all wilted and died, the seed I collected
mildewed without ripening. I would like more of its distinctive foliage around the garden. I wish I knew what a gomph was.
24th September 2023
Spiranthes 'Chadds Ford'
There are Hedychium in the garden, still acting out the last triumphant scenes of summer, but autumn has arrived. It is welling up through the cracks
with the force of magma, preparing the surface froth to be burnt off by winter. The fuchsias are only flowering on the outer tips, as though pushed there by the surging thought
of winter coming from the ground.
Spiranthes 'Chadds Ford' spent the summer producing a couple of strong growths and they have now pushed up spikes of flowers. It is a strange, wild collected plant
thought to be S. odorata for a long time, but it is larger, more vigorous and more reliably perennial. It is now thought
to be the hybrid S. x bightensis (S. cernua x S. odorata). It is vigorous, perennial, and I have killed it repeatedly.
It comes from the eastern coastal states of the US and probably appreciates a warmer summer that this garden can deliver. It has done well in the greenhouse
where it will be regularly split and repotted to keep it enthusiastic. Perhaps that will be the answer.
24th September 2023
Cyclamen cilicium
Cyclamen are redolent of sunny skies and southern Europe or they echo through the hollow halls of DIY superstores. It's a matter of perspective.
I don't find them easy to grow here. C.hederifolium is naturalising reluctantly in the garden. Cyclamen coum persists. It's natural home
is the drylands of Turkey and it could hardly be expected to adapt to my wet conditions. However it has adopted the DIY superstore as its home from home,
cultivated strains are mass produced, cheap and adaptable. Without them I doubt C. coum would still survive in the garden here.
In the greenhouse I grow a few other species. I have overlooked them for a long time because they are just fodder for vine-weevil, but I have found that growing
them in pure limestone chippings deters the weevil sufficiently. Hopefully I'm not tempting fate by saying that.
Some small success coaxed me out to the Cyclamen Society show yesterday. I spent some time peering at the tiny wonders, bought one or two,
and understood how people can abandon polite society in favour of cultivating cyclamen. Fortunately I have a very poor memory.
By this morning I had relinquished my grip on cyclamen, or they on me. Wet-garden thinking had been restored.
It's like blue-sky thinking but more realistic.
24th September 2023
Nerine sarniensis
Not that I am suggesting the garden is a place for realism. It is the habitat of ridiculous dreams and wild optimism. Vine-weevil notwithstanding
I will continue to grow a few cyclamen, but without them occupying my every waking moment.
Nerine are more of a problem. Perhaps I should be glad that they limit flowering to late autumn. Perhaps it is a mistake to raise seedlings to extend the season.
That may be the case, but it's too late, I already have early and late forms that stretch the flowering season from August to March.
I have also followed breeders in generations before me, crossing the hardy N. bowdenii with the bright orange of N. sarniensis to get
hardy hybrids in a range of colours. I have raised many, but Terry Jones' N. 'Zeal Giant' is still the best of them.
However, I was labouring in the shadow of the tales told by old wives, the assumption the N. sarniensis was tender. It doesn't seem to be here.
Two large pots of mixed bulbs by the house have been out there for a few years now without damage. Last summer I planted all of my surplus seedlings into
a long bed. They have all come up into flower again.
Perhaps a hard winter will kill them all, but perhaps I was over cautious. Maybe the old wives were wrong.