JEARRARD'S HERBAL
2nd February 2025
Galanthus woronowii .
This could have been snowdrop week. I might have missed it. There is a moment every spring when the snowdrops reach a peak. For a moment they are perfect.
I don't mean they are jolly good, I don't mean they are the best thing in the garden. For a moment they are perfect. It is a fleeting thing.
This might have been it, I might have missed it.
Gloomy and wet weather dominated the garden at the start of the week but in the last few days the sun has come out between to clouds. Friday was sunny all day.
I went out of the back door to look at the garden and there is a low bank where I have planted snowdrops. This is no Midsummer Night's Dream bank
"where the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows."
Not so, this is the bank where I piled the surplus soil from the mower shelter. No matter, I planted it with snowdrops and on Friday in the low sun I had the distinct feeling that they were perfect.
Perhaps I will be sorry that I didn't share it. Perhaps I will be happy that I kept it to myself. Sometimes these things don't communicate and everybody is poorer for the attempt.
Galanthus woronowii is undoubtedly at its peak. This is an early flowering clone being a simple joy, rain or shine.
2nd February 2025
Narcissus 'Bowles Early Sulphur' .
The snowdrop border is filling with the promise of snowdrops. Many of them are just buds but many are flowering and a few earlies have long gone.
Among the snowdrops I have planted a selection of very-small, moderately-small and anti-small daffodils. Was there a plan? Only in the sense that I needed somewhere
to plant the bulbs and the snowdrop border was handy. As the snowdrops and the daffodils bulk up they are slowly being spread around the garden.
Narcissus 'Bowles Early Sulphur' has increased enough to mean that I am looking for a suitable space. It has to be isolated enough
to escape being overshadowed by a big pink Camellia but close enough to the action to enhance the arrival of spring.
A measure of pensive wandering is called for. I don't generally worry about these things too much, the garden seems to look after its own
affairs quite marvellously, but I do have a large bush of Camellia 'Debbie'. It is a cheerful and quite ruthless pink. I wouldn't
want a chromo-catastrophe.
2nd February 2025
Pleurothallis lindenii .
Down in the greenhouse there are orchids, cowering and swearing at me under their breath. They don't appreciate the cold. It has been a very mild year so far,
I am hoping for a few more weeks of moderate weather. The orchids seem to heave a sigh of relief on the first day that the greenhouse gets really warm in the sunshine.
My fingers are crossed for a smooth transition to warmer weather.
I have a tiny refuge in the bathroom. Those orchids that would simply not survive in the greenhouse share a windowsill. I will be quite glad to get them outside and get the space back.
In anticipation of warm weather to come, Pleurothallis lindenii has flowered in the greenhouse. It comes from the high Andes of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru
and I have seen advice that it will tolerate temperatures as low as 10degC. Well, mine has been to minus 5degC and it's still with me.
It went into a cold greenhouse in 2012 and it's still there. Tougher than its reputation suggests, the Pleurothallis led me into the murky waters of frost tolerant tropical orchids
and it has been a steep learning curve.
There is no more space on the bathroom windowsill.
2nd February 2025
Galanthus 'Brenda Troyle'.
Perhaps 'Brenda Troyle' will be better next week, somehow I doubt it. A day of sunshine opened the flowers properly for the first time and although there are plenty of
unopened buds, I think this is the best moment. After years of keeping snowdrops in clumps and tubs, it was 'Brenda Troyle' that encouraged me to spread them out
into larger patches. It goes against the grain to dig them up when they are in leaf but it is old advice and it has served me well. For a while I tried lifting and
splitting them in the last weeks of growth, as they died down, but I have had better results moving them just after flowering.
Every year I try to do a couple of the larger clumps of 'Brenda Troyle' and every year I worry that I have killed them. They look so sad when they have been split and replanted.
Every year (so far) I have been delighted by the results. The snowdrops are spreading along the border, the clump is expanding. As the buds started to emerge this spring I thought it might be
a rather thin year but the plants have proved me wrong. Lifting and splitting is the way to go, best year yet.