JEARRARD'S HERBAL
4th February 2024
Camellia 'Winters Interlude'
My garden is L-shaped but even square gardens are strangely circular. It has been very evident this week, the garden has been warm. The period of decline towards winter has
been replaced by a period that is rising out of winter. The change is tangible. I go out into the garden with expectations that have to be adjusted.
A gentle walk and some peering has become a long crawl on my hands and knees looking at snowdrops. I know people who achieve the same result by bending in the middle
but that is beyond me, having dirty knees is the way ahead for me. Some reckless souls try to bend the knees and crouch, ha ha. They will learn.
Camellia 'Winters Interlude' is looking good but gets a place here today because I'm hoping this isn't just an interlude. It seems unlikely that we will avoid a further cold snap,
all the soothsayers are sucking their teeth and fondling their seaweed, but the possibility of a smooth transition into spring characterises the seduction of hope.
Spring is bouncing erratically around the garden like a baby rabbit and the baby rabbits are bouncing erratically around the garden on springs. It's very circular.
4th February 2024
Galanthus 'Brenda Troyle'
Ther big advance of the week has been among the snowdrops. There have been plenty of flowers for weeks but they have come from the border that houses the snowdrop collection.
An early flower here and there punctuated by gaps that speak of things to come. Most of the things to come have started to appear but there are still a few
late spaces populated by invisible promise and the demonic seduction of hope. Plants will appear. Those plants that don't appear will be dead, it doesn't do to worry.
Buying snowdrops is like investing in the stock market. Don't do it unless you can face the potential for losses.
In the wider garden, Galanthus 'Brenda Troyle' is demonstrating the delight of sheets of snowdrops. This one had bulked up well in my mothers garden. When she moved out
I brought them here. Since then I have divided them a couple of times and spread the clumps more widely. I should split a few of the larger clumps every year and if I was more diligent
then I would have a lot more plants. As it is I have a comfortable sufficiency and there are those who will tell you that that is enough. They are not snowdrop growers.
We pity them.
4th February 2024
Galanthus 'Anglesey Abbey'
Over the last few years the garden has changed. I have grown accustomed to the perpetual struggle associated with wresting control from the arms of flora.
Miss Bramble has been particularly spiteful, wrapping her sharp arms around my feeble charges and strangling until the lights go out.
In recent years she has reduced her visitations, deterred by the spade and repeated charges from the mounted mower brigade. She hasn't been routed,
just uprooted.
I am enjoying the appearance of places around the garden where a snowdrop might reasonably flourish. Slowly the more vigorous examples from the snowdrop
border are being released into the wild, now less wild than it once was. G. 'Anglesey Abbey' went into a thin bed that divides the hellebore border
from the woodland garden proper. It hasn't stayed there. As it has increased a few loose bulbs have crossed the gap and appear among the hellebores.
I don't know how they did it but I am grateful for their enthusiasm.
More places are available every year, more snowdrops, more confusion. It isn't perfect but it's an improvement on Miss Bramble's monoculture.
4th February 2024
Narcissus 'Miss Muffit'
Daffodils have started to add to the spring cheer of 'Rijnvelds Early Sensation'. The most exciting event of the week was the flowering of the earliest of
my own seedlings. A wee little thing with pale flowers. In the large world of wee daffodils it is fairly ordinary but in a small garden of large plants
it is a dainty triumph.
'Miss Muffit' and 'Spring Dawn' have both produced flowers. They are also both crammed into the snowdrop border and they could both do with more space.
'Spring Dawn' in particular spent too long growing under trees and will take a few years to come back into form. I'm sure there is a space for them somewhere.
One day I will be wandering around with a spade and a vacant expression and the deed will be done.
'Miss Muffit' has perfect poise and an exact shape. She is not expansive enough to look louche and not tight enough to look hard-nosed. With casual
disregard for hard labour she manages to be perfectly prim.