JEARRARD'S HERBAL
Thats enough introduction - on with the plants!
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... out in the garden.
8th June 2025
Camellia 'Annette Gehry' .
Spring has been safely stowed away. The fragile spume of flowers that has dominated the garden for a few months has crashed to the ground.
In their place is a surging tide of new growth reaching for the sun and swallowing the space. For a moment the garden feels claustrophobic.
After a long period when things seemed slow and ordered the garden has exploded like an enthusiastic virgin out of his jeans.
It's just a phase. I tell myself every year that its just a phase. Before long the heat of summer and some dryer weather will slow things.
Before long I can mow the grass and watch gratefully as it remains mown for a few days. For now I do what I can and try to remember what it's
like to be an enthusiastic virgin.
After months of flower, a few of the Camellia are still hanging on to flowers. 'Annette Gehry' is always very late and she is putting on a creditable show.
Others are less impressive. 'Drama Girl' has been treading the boards for one matinee too many, she is looking bruised and tired.
After a season of honourable service, 'Winters Snowman' and 'Femme Fatale' are looking amazing in their new growth. They had the sense to flower in season and be done with it.
The garden is reaping a fresh reward for their troubles.
8th June 2025
Aristolochia pistolochia .
This garden has a peculiar clarity about its occupants. Some things will grow here and some will not, there is very little scope for accommodation.
I persist in trying to grow peonies. The new herbaceous border is a small patch of ground that still catches the sun for most of the day.
The peonies are persisting beside me but I can see the shadows lengthening over their bed as the trees lean towards them. For the
moment it is good, and perhaps that is the whole story when it comes to peonies.
Other things have gone from the garden and are unlikely to be replaced. Can you imagine, I once grew Campanula here. I can't see them making a comeback.
There is a small area of dispute between the happy and the dead. It's called the greenhouse. It is now mostly reserved for things that would die
in the garden but that am not prepared to let go of. Perhaps wisdom will come with age. While I am waiting there is Aristolochia pistolochia.
It is completely hardy but far too small and fragile to survive outside. If I had a hundred then I would plant them out and enjoy them for a few years
but I have one. All attempts to propagate it to date have failed. It has set a single seed capsule, perhaps this is the year that it will germinate.
I am sanguine. Age has not yet brought wisdom but it has delivered some realism. I have never yet geminated the seed. I will try again but not pin my hopes on success.
8th June 2025
Hippeastrum 'Santa Fe'.
The greenhouse shelters other things that I struggle to explain. I'm not sure that I ever wanted a collection of Hippeastrum cultivars
but they arrived. Rather like the dwarves in 'Lord of the Rings', they arrived at the door one at a time until suddenly the deed was done.
I have a bench full of Hippeastrum leaves and very fine they are. Flowers might be nice perhaps but the bench is rather shaded,
it's a lot to ask.
From time to time I find the slug-shattered remnants of a scarlet flower among the verdant foliage but the plants don't really deliver.
I should find a new, sunnier bench for them or I should let go of them. I don't think either will be possible.
'Santa Fe' demonstrates the problem. When they are good, they are very good. It has performed well a few times (in the last twenty years).
I should really cut the collection back to just the good ones. 'Emerald' should go, I don't think it has flowered since I bought it.
Can't do it.
8th June 2025
Clematis 'Scartho Gem'.
I hardly need an excuse to hold on to things nonsensically. I have tried a fairly large collection of Clematis in the garden.
There is no reason to suppose Clematis would like acidic soil in a shaded garden but a few have been vigorous.
Clematis montana has been so strong that I fear for the stability of the trees it has climbed. A couple of
C. viticella cultivars have established. There doesn't seem to be a pattern to it. Many others have vanished without trace in similar circumstances.
I was not surprised when the large flowered hybrids failed. I grew them in the greenhouse for a season to make good strong plants
but they struggled and died when they went outside.
'Scartho Gem' and 'Rouge Cardinal' have been unexpected exceptions. The good cardinal flops over a yellow daylily and flowers with moderated enthusiasm.
'Scartho Gem' was planted up something (I forget what) that died. It promptly scrambled a couple of meters through brambles to a Trachycarpus
and clings on to that. I have no idea how it survives, the trailing stem is in constant danger of being uprooted but there it is, and here it is.
Evidence that nonsense finds a way.
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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