JEARRARD'S HERBAL
12th March 2023
Pieris taiwanensis .
Spring in the garden is like music, entirely without meaning. The feelings and ideas associated with both come entirely from the people involved, and this week the people involved
would have got wet. The drought is still with us, but it is now measured in the level of the reservoirs around the county. In the garden, the drought has been alleviated.
Long periods of drizzle and heavy overnight rain have been very welcome. My watering can filled itself up. It is a tiny detail but it invariably fills me with delight.
The garden would have been fine, there was still plenty of moisture in the soil, but the camellias had changed. Earlier in the year the buds had unfolded with slow elegance
but this had shifted into stoic bravado. This is pure objectivity of course, no personal meanings at all.
Back in the days when I still believed I would one day understand the genus Pieris, I grew a lot. They all had merits, I still grow many of them, but it was
P. taiwanensis that impressed me. I don't know why, it doesn't do anything unique or distinctive, but it did it really well. It's like wearing blue jeans.
Anybody can do it, but occasionally you see someone who does it sensationally. This is a replacement for the original plant which got lost, probably under brambles.
It was too good to do without. A return to flowering form is very welcome.
12th March 2023
Camellia 'Blissful Dawn' .
I sometimes tell people that I don't really like camellias. They don't generally believe me because I grow so many, but it is the truth. I admire their practicality,
I love the fact that they grow easily in this garden and I enjoy their enthusiasm for life, like an eighteen-year-old entering a bar for the first time. But I don't really like them.
They are like that same eighteen year old three hours later, tired, morose and distinctly off-colour. They have a moment, but it passes faster than you might imagine.
So I don't really like camellias in general, but some camellias I adore. The ones that I adore, I grow quite a lot of.
Back in 2016 I had decided that I grew sufficient dull camellias. I wasn't going to plant any more, enough of the garden was blighted by the yellow-brown sludge of their fallen flowers.
Generalisations are all very well, but I saw 'Blissful Dawn' in a local nursery and knew immediately that if I walked away without it, I would regret it.
Raised in New Zealand from a cross between C. reticulata (which I love) and C. 'Donation' (which is very popular), 'Blissful Dawn' is a perfect name,
encapsulating the way I feel about it. It is now growing vigorously in the garden after a few years in a pot.
12th March 2023
Narcissus 'Snow Baby' .
It is difficult to define the characteristics that make a good garden plant. There have been several attempts but they have all had flaws. Nowadays I ignore the published advice,
it generally refers to the performance of a plant at a particular place and time, and that isn't a very useful guide. Nowadays I wander around gardens,
note the things that are looking good, and if they impress me several times in different places then I consider trying them.
It is easy to consider single characteristics and assume that they have value, but it isn't always so. There are hundreds of small, yellow Narcissus
for the garden, but 'Tete a Tete' outclasses them all, by a long way. It is no accident that it is seen everywhere, it is an outstanding plant. It is even pushing the
typical yellow trumpet daffodils out of the picture.
There has been a great deal of effort put in to producing the next "Tete a Tete", so far without any significant success.
Narcissus 'Snowbaby' appeared, without much fanfare, from a breeder in Virginia. It has been an immediate success.
I have just split my tub of bulbs and planted them among the hellebores where I have a lot of space for a very good plant.
(An issue with plant registration means that it is now properly called 'Ice Baby', time will tell if the amended name gains traction).
12th March 2023
Corydalis solida 'Firecracker' .
I seem to spend a lot of time peering at things that aren't there. I have a plant of Polygonatum vietnamicum in the garden, uncertain whether it is hardy enough for its location or strong enough to survive the slugs.
I peer at the ground intently searching for insight.
Further up in the garden, I spent most of December searching under the trees for the first snowdrop noses appearing through the undergrowth. I am back there now, looking for signs of Corydalis solida.
In 2010 I planted three cultivars up there as a trial to see if they would prosper. They vanished, seemingly without trace. I abandoned the idea, but was astonished when the three plants
made a slow recovery. Over time they have even increased slightly. I think this one is 'Firecracker', the brightest of the cultivars I planted. I count it as a success, after a very long period of doubt.
In 2020 I put in another 50 tubers of C. 'George Baker'. I am peering at the ground very intently in the hope of seeing them. So far I have found one. The Corydalis will eventually grow into a scarlet carpet
(or at least a rug) appearing between the last of the snowdrops and the first Erythronium, but I may have to be peeringly patient.