JEARRARD'S HERBAL
7th April 2024
Anemone nemorosa 'Robinsoniana'
A week of glowering, resentful weather finally formed itself into a storm and rummaged about in the garden yesterday. The sort of rummage you might expect at a jumble sale.
The garden wasn't particularly neat at the start and then everything was picked up and put down again. As storms go, it was a moderate affair. It blew a bit in the afternoon
and rained a bit in the evening but things look untidy. The garden is strewn with the second-hand bargains of the season.
Anemone nemorosa has performed well when the sun has come out. 'Robinsoniana' has made a large patch under the trees and when the flowers open it is amazing.
I'm hoping that it will last for a couple of weeks if the weather returns to seasonal moderation. Last year I dug a few sections out of the mat and spread them around the garden,
hoping that it will repeat the spectacle in other locations.
It is a remarkable cultivar because it makes dense colonies of flowering stems. Most of the other cultivars I grow produce thin, running clumps that have charm but not impact.
I have seen others with the same habit, a white flowered wildling at the Hillier Arboretum a week ago was an outstanding block of colour. Sadly my local populations straggle,
the cultivars I grow straggle and the seedlings I have raised all straggle. I love them, but they straggle.
7th April 2024
Pleione Jorullo 'Long Tailed Tit'
Down in the greenhouse the exuberance of spring has not been exposed to the vagaries of the weather. The temperatures have been high and plants have
come into flower rapidly. Last week the first Pleione flowers opened, this week the bench is awash with colour, and perhaps by next week it will all be over.
Things are moving very fast.
Pleione Jorullo 'Long Tailed Tit' reached its peak on Thursday and I hoped that it would last until the weekend (orchid society meeting). In the event it has lasted well and might even sail into next week.
The Pleione season is quite short, three or four weeks and they will all be done, but the Disa have well developed flower spikes. I think they will be adding some consoling colour before long.
For now it is good to have some bursts of pink and "assertive" lavender from the Pleione to liven the place up after a Narcissus season that fell a bit flat.
7th April 2024
Narcissus 'Blushing Lady'
I don't mean to suggest that the Narcissus have been anything less than wonderful but, in the middle of the season at least, flower numbers have been down.
There have been suggestions that a second dry summer last year reduced bud initiation at a crucial moment. It may be so. Daffodil leaves have been good (hurrah!)
but flowers have been reduced.
The later flowering cultivars seem to have fared best. I have a new planting of 'White Lady' that is demonstrating its splendour as a late flowering cultivar among the hellebores.
'Pipit' has mesmerising flowers - so much so that I can't remember how many there are. I planted 50 bulbs (once upon a time) and I don't have that many flowers
but it doesn't matter, they are wonderful.
The best daffodil in the garden at present is 'Blushing Lady'. I adore the pink trumpet and the pale yellow corolla. I am looking for a place to plant
a bed of them. I have considered mixing them with the 'White Lady' but I know it would look stupid. They would like a sunny corner, and I don't
have many of those left. The solution might be to buy the bulbs first and worry about it later.
7th April 2024
Pinguicula grandiflora
I have spent many happy hours wandering around the wilder parts of Cornwall looking for Pinguicula grandiflora. It is listed in all the old floras as a resident of moist hollows.
I have visited many old locations and found moist hollows that are now housing estates, cauliflower fields and, most recently, a riding school but I have never found the plant.
Occasionally a flora will include the note "possibly introduced". I had reached the conclusion that if the plant had ever been here, it was gone now.
That was until the latest Flora of Cornwall gave a location for a colony of P. vulgaris in the county. Surely a mistake, P. vulgaris is a northern plant.
It must be a mis-identification, it's a very easy mistake to make. Two years ago I found the colony, some gorgeous unflowered rosettes. Last year I saw them in flower
and was astonished, it really was P. vulgaris. So I still haven't found P. grandiflora in the wild here. I still think it probably isn't there to be found.
Notwithstanding, it romps around among the carnivorous plants in the greenhouse and although it doesn't have the raw wonder of a discovery on a windy moor, it has the different satisfaction
of discovering it in a warm greenhouse with a cup of coffee.
They don't offer comforts like that in the floras, although I wouldn't be surprised to find that one of the historical sites was now a Starbucks.