JEARRARD'S HERBAL
Thats enough introduction - on with the plants!
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... out in the garden.
12th January 2025
Dahlia tenuicaulis .
While much of the country has been shivering in the freeze, the weather here has been wet. We have approached zero on a couple of nights but I don't think we actually froze.
I say 'I don't think' because I would hardly know. I stay in the warm bed until long after a ground frost would have gone. The rain that has fallen has been gentle,
not particularly cold and persistent enough to saturate everything. In the morning the house is chill with condensation as though the rain had slipped in under the doors while I slept.
Fortunately a couple of sunny intervals have lifted the mood. The first weeks of the new year are a sombre time. Even the bursting camellias and thrusting snowdrops
have trouble dislodging the seasonal ennui. After a week of dull weather they don't seem to be trying very hard, I had more of both in flower before Christmas.
I'm happy with that, the cheerful flowers act as a santa repellent when I have had enough of the ho-ho-ho's.
The surprise of the week was finding a single flower on Dahlia tenuicaulis. It was sheltering so low on the bush (bare stems now) that the sun had trouble reaching it
but somehow it all came together on Friday. Some flowers, some sunshine, some unseasonal cheer.
12th January 2025
Correa glabra turnbullii .
Not far from the dahlia, Correa glabra turnbullii has produced a flower. It isn't much but it is exciting. I planted it out here a few years ago to see if it might survive.
I had been slowly accumulating correas in the greenhouse and it was time to test them outside before things got out of hand. The results have been equivocal. The plant has survived
but the triumph has been on the small side. This is the whole of the seasons floral display so far. In the greenhouse Correa alba 'Pinkie' has been in significant,
if not spectacular, flower for several months. I have been watching Correa glabra turnbullii wondering if I was going to have to settle for a few new leaves as this year's
spectacle. This welcome bud was unexpected; there could yet be more.
It is really an autumn plant, flowering in the bright days that crown a sunny summer. Unfortunately once the sunny weather ends it progresses rather slowly.
It works to correa-time and in correa-time this is still autumn. A hard frost now would leave it very confused.
12th January 2025
Primula allionii 'James' .
The Dahlia and the Correa are fragments of the struggle to let go of last year. Last year was familiar and sunny (occasionally).
The view of this year has been misty and cold. It is pointless holding on to these glimpses of the past but they are comforting when the wind is howling and rattling about the house.
The garden has snowdrops and camellias but they have been here for a while now. They aren't the fresh-picked peas of an optimistic summer, they are cooked and canned and preserved for all eventualities.
I like tinned peas but they aren't a salad and camellias, for all their joy, are not the newborn spirit of spring.
Down in the greenhouse however, spring has arrived under the battered plastic. I didn't see the buds swelling on Primula allioni but 'James' has managed to open the first flower.
This is proper spring, not some autumnal blip preserved in aspic. I celebrate its slug-nibbled precocious bravado.
12th January 2025
Galanthus 'Moccas'.
Both snowdrops and camellias are old. They have been flowering for months in their autumnal identities. The camellias will carry on being old as flower after flower bursts with nagging senility
into May and even June. They will burst, bloom, shatter and fall with perfect aplomb, confident that they know exactly what they are doing. They are the middle-aged
men of the garden, buying fast cars in a bid to prove how young they are and then driving them slowly and competently with one eye on the open road and another on the insurance costs.
Camellias have been cultivated in China and Japan for millennia and age has solidified in their bones.
Snowdrops are the Johnny-come-lateleys of the garden scene. The autumn snowdrops have stolen the flowery thunder and then gone, but the spring snowdrops are still fresh.
'Moccas' has always signified the start of the season for me. It is only chance, but I had 'Moccas' long before the garden filled with snowdrops and the proper snowdrop seasons were smeared
into a single flowering improbability. I look for 'Moccas' in December, filled with excited anticipation, but I think I would be disappointed if I found it.
December is for mature reflection, Christmas cake, and eating stored root-vegetables. 'Moccas' is for spring.
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