JEARRARD'S HERBAL
Thats enough introduction - on with the plants!
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... out in the garden.
29th March 2026
Fritillaria meleagris .
It has been a very pleasant spring week. Cold winds have been moderated by spring sunshine. Alternatively, spring sunshine has been moderated by cold winds.
I was at Cornwall Garden Society's Spring Show yesterday and waiting in the car for the show to open was very warm and delightful. The sunshine took priority.
Wandering around the exhibits in the show building, the biting wind definitely had the upper hand.
In the garden, the ground is drying underfoot. I planted out some ferns with hope. It felt like the last chance to plant things out, but I expect there will be others.
I did a little dance of joy when it rained later that evening.
In the meadow, Fritillaria meleagris has flowered. There are about as many as I had last year but they have survived having two Leyland Cypress fall on them during Storm Goretti.
Unfortunately there is no sign of the thirty I planted last autumn. I think the trees landed directly on them. If I am lucky then some feeble growth may have struggled through the debris.
If I am very lucky then I might see some sign of them next year.
29th March 2026
Pleione Melbury 'Christine Walker' .
The Pleione are having an optimistic year. After several years when there simply wasn't time to repot them, they were all split during the winter.
As a result the flowering is slightly reduced but the plants look better. They had become very crowded and erratic in the old pots.
A few years ago I was given a bulb of P. Melbury 'Christine Walker'. When it flowered it was clear that it carried a heavy viral load.
With uncharacteristic resolve I threw it out of the collection. I threw it out, but I didn't throw it far. I put the pot in a saucer of water and stood it outside my front door
where it could be decorative without being harmful. Since then it has grown without any attention (I water it a couple of times in mid-summer if it gets dry)
and have watched in amazement as it has increased. I had assumed that the first winter would finish it off. Perhaps it is the protection of the house that helps.
A good cluster of flowers this year shows that it is thriving. I might even have to feed it eventually.
29th March 2026
Tulipa sylvestris .
There is a mysterious interaction between plants and people that is regularly observed but rarely explained. What is it about snowdrops and Sansevieria
that makes them such powerful objects of affection and yet leaves Muscari and Lunaria to sulk in the wilderness?
If you are able to answer that then perhaps you can explain tulips. Even the most cynical peer into their multicoloured blooms with childlike wonder.
Even the most egotistical and competitive souls gaze into their pools of colour and say to themselves 'I can't beat that'. Perhaps more tulips might improve
current affairs.
I have banged my obstinate head against the red carpet of Tulipa repeatedly without finding a long term solution. Perhaps I just have to replant new ones every year.
Yellow tulips may be another matter. I grow T. sylvestris in the new herbaceous border and although I have planted them over three years, they seem to be increasing by themselves.
They seem to shrug off the wind and when the sun comes out - well - the sun comes out.
29th March 2026
Paeonia corsica .
I have an Agave house, though it hardly contains any Agave these days. They were too spiky and antisocial. The Agave house has become a quiet place, far from the madding wind,
where the unexpected can be gently unexpected without disturbing society. If I had a sun-lounger up there I would never get any gardening done.
Like Sleeping Beauty I would lie in soporific contemplation of the universe as the brambles gently engulfed me.
Hakea victoria was doing well, but seems to have died this winter. Carmichaelia stevensonii has spent twenty years being insignificant.
Paeonia corsica has embodied the spirit of nonchalant astonishment. I wonder if that is the same character that tumbles from tulips like a cool mountain stream over a waterfall?
The peony lurks in a corner of the greenhouse slowly being enveloped by shade. I will have to act before it starts to fade away. I have not managed to establish it outside,
it seems to need the springtime warmth of the greenhouse. However it is important, it is the first peony.
Winter has been trounced.
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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