JEARRARD'S HERBAL
Thats enough introduction - on with the plants!
To navigate this site use the links above or the detailed links at the bottom of this page.
... out in the garden.
8th March 2026
Erythronium 'Susannah' .
The weather has shifted from grey and wet to grey and damp. It is a small change but the garden is a nicer place to be as a consequence.
Last week the ground was soaked and spongy with the idea of cold, wet feet tied to every footfall. This week the ground is firmer,
the moisture lingering in the air and lurking as droplets in the hair to be discovered later.
Temperatures have gone up and the garden has responded with long repressed enthusiasm. In a burst of bulbous glee I have planted
some late plants into the garden. A few extra Narcissus cyclamineus went in - cheap at the garden centre as the flowers faded -
and Erythronium americanum from the AGS show because it should grow well in the garden but I have never actually tried it.
Following the subtle joy of Erythronium japonicum last week (just so much tattered slug-fodder now), E. 'Susannah' has burst from the ground
with much greater speed and far less subtlety. The flowers are so keen to open that they appear at ground level like curious tulips and don't reflex and hang until the scape has elongated.
8th March 2026
Corydalis solida .
Last week I was at the AGS Early Spring Show enjoying a wide range of central Asian Corydalis.
The genus is mostly tuberous and they grow by sending up fragile shoots in early spring, flowering like mad and then vanishing again, all in a matter of weeks.
The Asian species tend to come from arid lands with a Mediterranean climate, rainfall through the winter and then dry through the summer.
They cope with the climatic problems by growing and flowering in the short period between winter wet and summer drought. It isn't a genus that
you might expect to thrive in my perpetually damp garden.
However, Corydalis solida grows throughout Europe and the floras say it has been introduced to the UK (I have never seen it). It grows in moist woodlands
and copes with the competition from trees by using the same trick. It rushes into flower in spring sunshine and then disappears before the trees produce leaves.
In recent years I have planted some of the red flowered forms at the top of the garden and every spring I hope for red carpets of flower, to be rewarded
with occasional red threads.
These lilac flowered forms give me some hope. They were planted in 2010 and are just starting to make decent clumps. My red ones didn't go in until 2020
so it's early days.
8th March 2026
Helleborus 'Anna's Red' .
Hellebores are another group that are developing very slowly under the trees. Over the years I have planted a large number of outstanding modern hybrids in the hellebore bed,
but it is the tough and unexceptional that have survived. I think modern breeders are relying too much on greenhouse cultivation during the pollination season,
the resulting plants have not been strong in the garden here. It is possible that my maintenance regime hasn't helped them - they get mown in late autumn
and have to be sufficiently dormant by then to put up with the indignity.
A great breakthrough in breeding happened when Helleborus niger was crossed with some of the stem forming species. It was discovered that the hybrids were (slightly) fertile
when crossed with H. x hybridus. The result has been a steady trickle of new hybrids with large flowers that are more-or-less stemless. I have tried them in the hellebore border
and they have not persisted.
H. 'Anna's Red' was one of the first such hybrids that I grew, bred by Rodney Davey. It is still one of the best in my eyes and I grow it in a bed beside the house
to enjoy its early and exuberant flowers. It isn't as bright as the best red H. x hybridus but it is close enough.
8th March 2026
Fritillaria imperialis 'Sunset'
When I first flattened the new herbaceous border (I didn't do it, a man in a digger came and did it for me, I can still see the wheel ruts) I had visions of a border filled
with herbaceous plants through summer. It is something that was lacking in this tree-shaded garden (though it is less tree-shaded now than it was before Storm Goretti and so this year things will be different).
However the new herbaceous border rapidly developed into a trial space for spring flowers - by the end of summer it is mostly weeds. Honestly, they are weeds not ecological opportunists.
This was the obvious place to try Fritillaria imperialis to see how it performed. The border is a mixture of good top soil and broken stone, thoroughly compacted
and laser-levelled by the digger, so that on this sloping site with free draining soil it forms sludgy puddles in the rain. Isn't technology wonderful (but I couldn't have done it
with a spade). I also needed to check that fritillaries weren't eaten by deer, Allium 'Purple Sensation' persists in the same bed as clumps of onion leaves, the flowers vanish as soon as the buds appear.
Fortunately Hilliers Garden Centre offered the opportunity of a cheap bulb at the end of the planting season. That was what dictated the selection of the cultivar 'Sunset'.
Cheap is important when you are testing a plant's potential as deer food.
For the second year it has flowered unmolested. It might be worth trying a few more.
To find particular groups of plants I grow, click on the genus name in the table above. Click on the "Index" box at the top of the page for the full list.
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about what is going on, if you are interested.
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