JEARRARD'S HERBAL
31st May 2026
Crinodendron hookerianum .
A week that started warm and became hotter. Records were broken and cd's were scratched. The garden looked as though it was suffering and a fall in temperature in the last couple of days was very welcome.
It is an advance warning to be prepared for the heat of summer which could strike at any moment.
Spring shrubs have finished in the garden and the place has slipped from light, colourful movement to heavy green shade. There are a couple of accidental Deutzia providing
colour - accidental in the sense that I was given cuttings and now I have shrubs, they were never part of a plan.
The startling colour in the garden comes from Crinodendron hookerianum, a sensational towering mass of rich evergreen foliage and tumnbling scarlet lanterns.
It spends a month in profligate bounty and then retreats to dark elegance for the rest of the year.
31st May 2026
Hippeastrum 'Santa Fe' .
I have been sorting through the Hippeastrum. Some have been good, others have simply survived.
'Santa Fe' has been one of the successes, increasing in the pot and flowering regularly. It also seems to resist the ravages of slugs fairly well but having said that
I will go down to the greenhouse tomorrow and find it in tatters. Never underestimate the malice of a slug.
31st May 2026
Dierama luteoalbidum .
I am very fond of Dierama but I don't really have anywhere to grow them. There is very little open ground here now and the plants are too evergreen for the new herbaceous border (which is mown to the ground in winter).
At present Dierama luteoalbidum grows in the greenhouse, yearning for the day it can be set free from its pot. I'm looking for a suitable corner, I just haven't found it yet.
31st May 2026
Eucalyptus pauciflora niphophila .
The avenue of Eucalyptus that leads up from the back door are an avenue in the mind only. Three or four of the original twenty remain, the rest have fallen or been cut out.
A last remaining Eucalyptus pauciflora niphophila hangs on near to the house. I had to cut it back hard a couple of years ago when a storm knocked it sideways
and it looked ready to fall onto the conservatory. The regrowth was vigorous and is now flowering better than ever with long hanging growths that will shortly have to be trimmed
before they become a hazard. I love having the flowers but I would quite like to preserve the house as well.