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.
7th December 2025
Acanthus sennii .
Christmas is in sight and the time has come to deck the halls in clods of mud. We haven't had a frost yet but the rain has fallen without mercy.
I have been trying to plant two new shrubs in the garden (a Magnolia and a Berberis) and it hasn't been possible. Not entirely true, it would have been possible
but it would have been very unpleasant. Last time I thought there was a gap in the weather I opened the back door into the sunshine and a hail shower fell.
It's a pity because the garden is mild and wet, it would be perfect for planting. Perhaps tomorrow.
Mild and wet, the garden is wobbling with uncertainty. The dahlias are looking good and there are still strong red buds looking to the fuchsia (sorry).
A frost would change things. Echoes of summer are still clinging to the garden by their fingernails, a swift frost would plunge them into the dreary
pre-solsticial abyss.
Acanthus sennii is one of the hangers-on. Occasional flower heads in August and September set the border alight with their prickly heat. Now every shoot is carrying bloom
and in the dank darkness of December the effect is strangely alarming, like a road traffic accident unfolding. Frost will blacken the leaves, destroy the flowers
and give me a good excuse to cut the stems down.
7th December 2025
Billbergia x windii .
This summer has been a celebration of bromeliads. I have been given a few new things, I have repotted a few old things and I am determined to gather them together
and get them in order at last. For decades there have been odd plants scattered around the place being artfully tousle-headed and cluttering the place up.
One of the first benefits of the intention to impose order was the exposure of a number of duplicates. Something grows too big, you divide it and sit the spare one
down somewhere to give to somebody perhaps. There it sits like a fat cat in a clotted cream factory, occupying space without purpose. In the summer I finally gave the duplicates away.
I was left with two Billbergia that I had put into the car but which nobody seemed to want. I planted them beside the car park. I am not going to carry
them a single step further. They will prosper, they will die, Santa will feed them to his reindeer, I am past caring.
It's not that I have fallen out of love with Billbergia but it's like seafood cocktail, you know when you have had enough.
Billbergia x windii has celebrated the new liberation by producing an unseasonal flower to dangle in the unexpected space. It doesn't like to get too wet so it comes into the shed for the winter.
It will shrug off the cold without trouble but if left outside it gets covered in slimy sycamore leaves and looks like a puppy in a mud puddle.
7th December 2025
Rosa x odorata 'Viridiflora' .
As spring turns to summer the romantic gardens of the mind fill with the old perfumes of roses. Scent and colour combine with exquisite imbrication to capture the spirit
of radiant conviviality. Scroll to December and it all goes belly-up.
Rosa x odorata 'Viridiflora' seems to flower most profusely in the darkest days. Certainly it is at its least productive during May and June. Perhaps it knows it is letting the side down
and hides its summer head in shame. It isn't scented, it isn't colourful and it isn't imbricated. If you lived under a roof tiled like this you would have more pressing problems
today than reading this nonsense.
For all that, it is a rose in a garden that doesn't really encourage roses. A little bit of defiant individuality is a good thing. It may be a bit 'out there' for some tastes
but while December coughs up all manner of mucus onto the garden, it is out there.
In the early stages it produces flowers that are as green as the promise of its name but would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? In this case the answer is no, it is scentless,
thorny, feeble and wintry. It is a Christmas anti-rose.
7th December 2025
Galanthus 'Three Ships'
Peering through the misty windows into the gloomy garden it is difficult to discern the magma of passion that drives gardening. It is there, under the ground somewhere,
but it can feel as though the volcano is extinct, or has at the very least gone to bed with a sniffle.
Underground, however, the magma of gardening passion is stirring. Pressure is building. Through tiny cracks in the crust the first steamy scent of spring is breaking through.
There are daffodil shoots clustered where last week there was only stones and mud. Not the early emergency services of 'Rijnveld's Early Sensation' you understand, but the hardcore
promise of a daffodil spring.
At the top of the garden Galanthus 'Three Ships' has emerged. Ten days ago I went looking for it filled with anxious yearning, and I came back to the house, anxious yearning unassuaged.
Suddenly all is well, 'Three Ships' has flowered and the bulbs seem to be increasing. It had been doing very well in a tub so I tipped it out and planted dozens of them into the top woodland.
A few very moderate years followed while the pressure built. Evident increase is the light of joy breaking through the darkness. Time to tuck in your shirt and prepare for the roller-coaster of snowdrops.
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.
I have a lot of good intentions when it comes to updating this site, and I try to keep a note
about what is going on, if you are interested.
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