JEARRARD'S HERBAL
5th October 2025
Hyacinthoides ciliolata .
Autumnal sun has played with the garden and we only caught the tail of the storm during the weekend. I was able to lift and split some Colchicum in a stiff breeze yesterday
but it wasn't rattling the branches. As I understand it things were a lot more blustery on the other side of the hill where gardens took more of a battering.
There never seems to be much happening at this time of year but autumn bulbs are making a good display and I have spent a lot of time behind a camera.
A lot of wasted time on Friday as it turned out. With humidity steady at 98% all day, the greenhouse was uncomfortable and the pictures I took were all blurred by condensation.
They have been deleted. The sun came out again yesterday and I have repeated the job. The Nerine are in full flower and I was keen to get a good record before they
start to fade.
In the coolest part of the greenhouse (airy rather than fashionable) Hyacinthoides ciliolata is in flower. It comes from north Africa in a band stretching from Morocco to Tunisia and is probably the same thing as H. lingulata.
This one is supposed to have ciliate margins to the leaves and some growers say it is shorter. For me it flowers a fortnight later than H. lingulata, assuming that both my plants are correctly identified -
not something that I would assert with galloping confidence.
5th October 2025
Camellia sasanqua 'Variegata' .
I was astonished to discover Camellia brevistyla in flower two weeks ago. I had technically noted the arrival of autumn, even allowing myself a wry smile at the weather forecasters
jaunty asserting that September had arrived. I was not expecting camellias to follow hard on the heels of august, though they were welcome. I was not expecting the first storm
of the season to arrive so promptly either. I passed both events off a cheery "isn't nature jolly" sort of way.
I was a little more shaken by seeing Camellia sasanqua in full flower at Tremenheere during the week but Tremenheere is a unique garden in many ways.
Discovering the same species in flower in my own garden almost knocked me off my feet. The reality is that I had to get down on my knees to take this picture.
The shock was real, the descent to the ground more cautious.
When I had picked myself up I delighted in this flower. It represents a return to the garden of this variegated clone. I grew it many years ago beside one of the internal windbreaks in the garden.
It was slowly overwhelmed by more vigorous cousins. Before it expired (as I judged it) I dug the poor thing up and moved it to a better location.
It turned out that in its own estimation death had already claimed it.
5th October 2025
Galanthus reginae-olgae 'Blanc de Chine' .
In the greenhouse the snowdrop version of the dance of the seven veils has been playing out. I look at the empty pots and wonder what delights there are to be revealed.
Tiny green noses hidden amongst the gravel reveal a promise of something unspoken. I would settle for open flowers, half-clothed virgins are not renowned for their skills in weeding.
Slowly, and in a sequence that seems to change subtly year by year, the contents of the pots are showing themselves. So far it looks like a good year, there are more shoots and more flowers than last year.
There are also a lot of pots still to show movement, perhaps they never will. I see no reason to think that death has extended a helping hand to them but I
have been wrong about such things before. I will be happier when I have seen some verdant shoots.
'Blanc de Chine' has been indulging in a full-on seven veils tease. For some years it has been the first to appear and yet last week there was nothing.
Almost as soon as I had noticed that fact, and started to brace myself for a grim reality, the plant threw itself up into the sunlight and was flowering smugly with a "na-na-na-na, who's a fool then?"
Do dancing virgins do that? Somehow I doubt it.
5th October 2025
Strobilanthes pentastemonoides
Autumn is filled with subtle detail - at least as long as you are not looking at the Nerine (which don't really do subtle). Just down the road from me there is a hedge with an orange berried hawthorn in it.
Every time I pass it catches my eye. It's different but not outstanding. I keep meaning to stop and get a proper look but there never seems to be time. Last year, by the time I got to checking the berries had all been eaten.
Subtlety reigns among the Strobilanthes in the garden. S. attenuata has been trying very hard to escape notice, even to the extent of throwing off its flowers
in the middle of the day to perplex me. S. nutans may well be in flower as I write. I have looked but not seen them.
The exception has been S. pentastemonoides which grows in full sun at the start of the herbaceous border. It went in during one of those periods when I was trying to clear the greenhouse
of unnecessary clutter. It found a happy place and has grown from strength to strength. I have always thought that it would be knocked back by winter but it sailed through the "beast from the east"
without batting an eyelid. It is made of strong stuff.
Two weeks ago there was barely a flower open, now it is a magnificent dome of purple. One of the best recent introductions to gardens.