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.
9th November 2025
Dahlia purpusii .
It has been a confusing week. Skies have been grey and gloomy, the garden is wet and night time has barely staggered up the hill in the morning before it rolls down again
in the afternoon. The garden, by contrast, has been bright. There are bizzie lizzies in flower. By the house, Impatiens gomphophylla is still decked with orange and yellow flowers
trying their hardest to sparkle in the grey gloom. Impatiens tinctoria has come back into flower after a few weeks of green decline when it looked as though a sharp frost
would be a kindness.
Dahlia mercki has stepped back from the limelight but the white form is still full of flower and Dahlia purpusii has taken the combination of green and purple
to new heights. Throughout the summer it has floated purple boats over a sea of green but in the last weeks it has become a regatta with rich colour jostling
to obscure the viridian depths. It is one of my favourite species for no particular reason. It starts flowering early and speaks of hope amd promise for the season
but that can't be the cause. My other favourite species is D. tenuicaulis which is still in tight bud and won't open until Jack Frost is breathing down its neck.
It may be that I just like odd things, and the search for reason is futile.
9th November 2025
Hedychium 'Gardner Waters' .
For all the soft grey drippy insinuation of the weather, the autumn garden remains bold. The last of the reliable Hedychium are flowering. They are all yellow
but they don't really arrive bathed in sunlight. They have the same tone as primrose-painted kitchens from the 1980s, greyed by time and the inevitable departure of fashion.
They will also be greyed by decay. In the damp weather the flowers pass from freshness overnight but still cling to the stems. There are pink-flowered forms
for this season but perhaps that is the wrong phrase. There are non-flowering forms that would be pink-flowered in a warmer climate. Here, they are resolutely green.
There is not much to choose between the late flowering yellows. Those of the "Tai" series are all fun, the early ones are reliable - 'Tai Sunlight' is in flower at the moment.
The later ones - 'Tai Mammoth' is a good example - will flower in December if we remain frost free. The worst possible outcome for 'Tai Mammoth' is a light frost
in December that burns the leaves but doesn't quite kill the flowers. They go on to open, it is very sad.
My favourite of the group is 'Gardener Waters'. It arrived as a rude chunk of rhizome with a great gash in it where someone had ripped it out of the ground
with a flailing spade and a no-nonsense attitude. It was endearingly vulnerable.
9th November 2025
Camellia 'Takanini' .
It has been a good summer for the camellias. I'm not sure what it was but the warmth was right, the rainfall was appropriate and they are all full of buds.
The garden has quietly filled with autumn camellias flowering better than ever before. Perhaps maturity has something to do with it. The Camellia sasanqua
cultivars along the boundary hedge have grown well after a few years when they struggled to establish in the stone and rubble of a tumble-down wall.
I have seen the first C. japonica in flower but I went looking for an early flower on 'Nobilissima' and there was nothing. However, the first
flowers have opened on 'Show Girl' a month before they would be expected. In the coming weeks flowering will extend from the very top branches
into the range of the photographer!
C. 'Winters Snowman' has also started, its loose flowers puffed together like a chance swirl of snowflakes in a gust. They will shatter and scatter
with the same accidental nonchalance.
I could cheerfully live without snow but it will have some highlights if it appears. The blood red flowers of C. 'Takanini' are defiantly mortal when dusted in snow.
It is one of the sobering and uplifting images of winter (think robins on Christmas cards).
9th November 2025
Narcissus pachybolbus
I have many favourite things in the garden this week and among their number is a peculiar idea. I have a favourite gap.
The story has many dull and pedestrian roots but in essence I had Leucadendron 'Burgundy Sunset' growing beside the back door. I delighted in it
and it flowered in profusion last winter. In March a vindictive storm dessicated the foliage and within weeks it was dead.
It was a favourite plant, and now I find it is a favourite gap.
When the Leucadendron was young I planted Narcissus pachybolbus beside it. TheNarcissus squeezed its early flowers from under the dark skirts of foliage
in a way that was charming but clearly not permanent. I had always assumed that the Narcissus would be swamped. I would have removed it but was frightened to delve too
intimately among the Leucadendron roots (they are not very forgiving plants).
The Leucadendron has gone, the Narcissus is free, and I have a favourite gap.
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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