JEARRARD'S HERBAL
23rd February 2025
Camellia cuspidata .
It has been the sort of spring week where I watch the cold threat of winter lifting and daren't put it into words. There are unlikely to be any serious
cold shocks once we get into March. It is so close. To keep myself from getting carried away I went up to Surrey for a few days.
Still cold there but through chattering teeth the people are feeling the hope and fearing to express it too clearly.
Crossing the country showed me the effect of big weather but it was the small weather in the garden that distracted me most.
Camellia cuspidata grows on the prow of the garden atop a Cornish hedge that juts out into the world of other people.
It is peculiarly exposed. I'm not sure why I planted it there, it was a small plant and it had to go somewhere but this has
always seemed a strange choice of location, even by my whimsical standards. However, here it is, jutting out, taking the world as it comes.
It took the full force of storm Daragh in January. The windward side was entirely stripped of leaves, the leeward side looks unaffected.
This is certainly small weather. I am hoping that the windward side will recover in the summer, if not the bush will take on that
leaning, wind-battered form displayed by so many of the local hedges. It's a surprise because it is fairly well sheltered by the adjacent vegetation.
However, it sticks out slightly into the road. Storm Daragh came down the hill with the precision of a probationary driver but without matching caution,
and hit it full-square. The Camellia has been dented but not written-off.
23rd February 2025
Agapetes 'Ludgvan Cross' .
The wind has been building again today. The forecast suggests that the worst of it will miss us but the day is still young.
Still air in the greenhouse is welcome and deceptive. Agapetes 'Ludgvan Cross' seems to grow well there. It is planted in the ground
beside the doorway (no door) and it certainly gets as cold as it does outside. Despite that it does well inside and I have never seen one prospering outside.
I'm not sure if it dislikes air movement or if it benefits from the extra warmth of the greenhouse in summer. One day I will grow a dozen from
cuttings and plant them around the place, the climate here is almost right, perhaps I can find a suitable little nook.
Opposite the Agapetes in the greenhouse grows Semele androgyna from Madeira. It writhes vigorously along the wall and spills recklessly
through the door, taunting me with its vigour (and trying to trip me over when it can). Outside in the garden it has survived,
producing new stems every year. They were about 30cm tall when I planted it, perhaps a decade ago, and they're still 30 cm tall.
It likes the greenhouse but is not so impressed by the garden.
23rd February 2025
Helleborus x hybridus black .
There is always a moment when things are just right. I look forward to the hellebores every year because they don't start until the days begin to get longer.
They don't set off in autumn, full of deceptive bravado, but they wait until the new year whatever the weather. There is a moment when things are just right
and I think this black hellebore has arrived at it. The first flower is perfect, the second still to come. Enough sun to make it shine
but not enough to suggest it is fading. It isn't the best black flowered seedling I have grown but it is the most tenacious. It was planted in a group of a dozen or more
but highly selected hellebores can be fickle things. It is the only one in the group that performs. Now all I need is a verdant cluster of seedlings
growing beneath it and the chance of a few more tough, black-flowered hybrids.
Just as the individual plants have a moment, the hellebore border has hit a peak. It's difficult to be certain, next week may be better, but this week is good.
One black flowered hellebore is an exciting discovery among the paler flowers. If I had a dozen of them they might be invisible on the woodland soil.
Perhaps one black hellebore is the perfect quantity, I won't know until I try more.
23rd February 2025
Camellia 'Mary Christian'.
The camellias are being rather jolly. The flowers are opening in a spickle-spackle way around the garden. If there had been more cold nights
they might have been more co-ordinated but spickle-spackle is good. As a grown-up I appreciate the elegant simplicity of the species.
There are some astonishingly wonderful things amongst them and I grow as many as I can. However, sometimes I am wandering about the garden
in a grinning, meditative frame and I turn a corner to find 'E. G. Waterhouse' or stumble into 'Desire'. I am filled with beaming wonder at their
exuberant frills and flounces, ruthless wonders of pink innocence. This week it was 'Nuccio's Pearl' that transported me from garden worker
to grinning idiot. I have reached the age when excessive grinning is accompanied by liberal dribbling. It isn't a good look.
'Mary Christian' saves me. This must be her best week, how could things be better? Next week the ground will be littered with her yellowing pink flowers.
Maybe the wind will continue to increase today, the best moment will be ripped from her. It doesn't matter, this has been it,
her best moment of the year revealed in a gap in the small weather.