JEARRARD'S HERBAL
10th December 2023
Camellia sinensis
A fortnight ago I was congratulating myself smugly on the beauty of the bananas in the garden. Things have changed, the smugness has gone but the beauty remains.
The bananas have turned black, the leaves frosted to destruction in a single night. They are jet-black, hanging from the vertical stems.
I'm not by nature a stylish person, but even I can see the appeal. A designer of modern gardens will pass by and next year's Chelsea show gardens will be filled with
panels of shiny, black irregular boards or tar-painted planks.
The weather has delivered some strange results and throughout the garden there are small details to enjoy. The miniaturisation of winter has arrived
complete with earnest peering and internal rejoicing in small things. If you are an out-of-focus garden gnome, your moment has arrived!
Burgeoning above the details, the garden belongs to the camellias this week. C. sinensis is delightful. I have been looking forward to it
for some time. It isn't spectacular but it is very satisfying. That's tea for you.
10th December 2023
Camellia sasanqua 'Paradise Glow'
They used to say that paradise is a garden. It was a very popular idea in the 1980's. I don't think that it is too unkind to say that the paradise garden
spawned the jewel garden and reinforced the idea of a garden as a place to 'be'. A place to recline elegantly and appear wise.
A place to read the Booker Prize nominations and plan hedgehog corridors to connect adjacent habitats.
We all know that in reality gardens are places of seemingly endless labour. As any dedicated mulcher will know, gardens are the reverse of the Augean stables.
You spend all of your energy shovelling the shit in. Paradise is a peculiar place.
Paradise Plants in Australia have been breeding Camellia sasanqua cultivars for forty years. I planted five of them in the garden a decade ago
and promptly lost track of the names. There will be labels at the base of the plants somewhere but I haven't yet located them.
However I have been able to fall back on the photos of the plants as I put them in. With the flowering of 'Paradise Pearl' this year and I have at last been able to
confirm the identity of all five. 'Paradise Glow' emerged from the darkness of ignorance last year. Now I am sure of the first five, I feel emboldened
to try some more. Better labelling has been the key learning point.
10th December 2023
Camellia 'Contessa Lavinia Maggi'
I walked up through the garden in the middle of the week looking for signs that the dreary weather and my dreary mood had an end in sight.
The fallen leaves are lovely, the Cyclamen leaves are lovely. The old sycamores on the boundary are looking their best, their lazy round trunks
dressed in their Christmas best of moss and lichen. It is all lovely, and dank and cold and windy. The elegant simplicity of winter really needs a gallery setting to show it off.
A warm gallery and the promise of a comfortable seat and a cup of coffee. An 'artisan' bakewell tart wouldn't hurt either. Unfortunately the delicate beauty
of winter appears as the cold wind slices through the landscape. Appreciation of subtle colours is modified as the viewer turns blue.
I like to think that Contessa Lavinia Maggi was a bold and colourful character. Her eponymous Camellia certainly thumbs its nose at
the subtle seasonal shimmer of olive and grey. I wasn't expecting to find any flowers open but I looked anyway. Somehow the darkening garden
fosters delight in futility. The bold Contessa will have none of it. She has perched flagrantly on the very top of the bush
radiating beams of rosy defiance. I can't say that I like her, she is loud, insincere and repetitive, but I am very pleased that she is there.
10th December 2023
Camellia 'Winton'
Camellias are not really a surprise in a Cornish garden. There is nothing revolutionary for them to do. Eventually somebody will breed a chrome-yellow
flowered hardy camellia and scarcely an eyebrow will be raised. We will all have to have it of course, but we all knew it was coming sooner or later.
Camellias shrug off surprise like water off a ducks back. In it's place they have quizzical interest. They invite the question, 'are you really sure about that'?
The answer is always ambiguous.
Camellia 'Winton' is a hybrid from C. cuspidata and it is a sibling of C. 'Cornish Snow'. It has a pink blush and is said to be a stronger
garden plant than 'Cornish Snow'. I saw the latter in a garden at the start of the week and admired its robust fecundity. I don't grow it,
but it flowers much earlier than 'Winton' and I should really have one. The early flowers would be a moderately pleasant addition to the garden scene
while 'Winton' prepared for a springtime display.
I got home to find this one open. Once again the camellias invite the question, 'are you really sure about that'?