JEARRARD'S HERBAL
27th July 2025
Hydrangea macrophylla 'Lady Nobuko' .
The heat of summer has slumped over the garden like a blue whale in a deck chair. The place recovers some breath of lightness and joy in the evening, and then
the horde of biting insects emerge to dance over my delicious taste. Perhaps I'm just getting old and grumpy, I have been told that it can happen to some people.
It's my own fault, I planted a lot of trees, reduced wind speeds and now I have to put up with the extra insects. Eventually I will get the extra small birds needed to eat the excess insects,
the balance of nature will be restored and I will be able to sleep without itching. Any small birds reading this (hint hint) there's a banquet on offer...
Poor 'Lady Nobuko' has been ignored in the urge to scratch an itch, although in some ways that is how she arrived. 'Lady Taiko' and 'Lady Fujiyo'
had established their magnificent blue presences in the garden when I first saw poor 'Lady Nobuko', underwhelmingly overlooked in a garden centre.
I couldn't resist, I gave her a chance and set her free in the garden. This has been her best year, compact, floriferous and interesting.
Or stunted, twiggy and dull, take your pick. It doesn't help that she is settled in the shade of a large tree but she is dusty and greyish compared with her illustrious kin.
More Gollum than Cinderella.
27th July 2025
Blepharocalyx cruckshanksii .
Blepharocalyx cruckshanksii has changed its name lately, I'm not on top of it yet. Blepharocalyx took me an age to master,
in the end I whispered it to my teddy-bear, who prompts me if I look blank. Temu cruckshanksii will be easier, teddy will not be troubled,
but I have put the work in, dammit, Blepharocalyx Blepharocalyx Blepharocalyx.
I had been growing it for a few years in the greenhouse before I finally planted it in the garden. It had developed a slight lean which I corrected when I planted it.
Along came the wind (I am inclined to invoke the big-bad-wolf at this point but perhaps I have stretched things far enough) and returned it to an incline.
Since then it has grown stronger, matured to flowering and thickened into a substantial shrub. In time I hope that it will become a small tree.
It spreads its sparkling joyful wonder around that corner of the garden, and everything it does is done with a slight teeter. I could rectify it.
I could cut it down to the ground and allow it to regrow. I haven't the heart, I love it dearly, teeter and all.
Blepharo-bloody-calyx.
27th July 2025
Hoya carnosa .
The greenhouse is a refuge from the wind and a refuge from the biting insects. It's like the dream-world of a warm duvet in the morning, far enough from reality
to be free of horror and close enough for comprehension to be enjoyed. For all the sensible and studious things that find a home there
it is the eccentric eclectica that whisper most the flippant promises of delight. It is like a mad uncle who whispers into the wonderstruck ear
that there is more to life than focus-groups and standing-orders. I have a niece and I have always hoped that I was mad enough.
Others must form their own opinion.
Among the eccentric eclectica, Hoya carnosa slouches with the tangled trails of a climber that really can't be bothered.
In a family of tropical vines there is no reason to suppose that any will tolerate the cold. What a good thing I don't cling too closely to reason
and eternal thanks to Jeremy Wilson at Strete Gate Camellias who said it was hardy with him in a cold tunnel. It has been astonishing.
I tried Hoya australis from New South Wales. It looked, perfectly rationally, like a good candidate. It dropped flowers, dropped leaves and then dropped dead.
Mad uncles are undervalued.
27th July 2025
Anemone x hybrida 'Andrea Atkinson'.
All of which brings us to the change of season which is always there but somehow more telling at some times than others.
Last week there were Cyclamen. Not a lot of them, but it was enough. I was in a garden centre and the ranks of Cyclamen persicum for bedding
had started to build on the shelves. I was overtaken with a belch-bubble of horror and hysteria. The seasons change gently, does the commercial reflection
of that truth have to be so brutal? I was shopping in the supermarket at the start of July and they already had the back-to-school offers.
The poor children hadn't even broken-up. No wonder they become psychopaths and journalists.
The autumn anemones have been kinder, drifting gently onto the garden scene. 'Andrea Atkinson' has been the best for me, a contained and sympathetic waft of white
midst the last screaming throes of Crocosmia and Hemerocallis, reminding me that the new season doesn't have to be roused by a shrill buzzer.
There are pink ones as well if you can handle an understated cornucopia of delight.