2019 – CHW
Magnolia ‘Honeybelle’ performing nicely for the first time. Smallish flowers but a good greenish-yellow as they first open. There are far too many similar named yellow varieties in different categories / flower shapes but this one probably scrapes by as being good enough to be grown more widely.


Day 3 of our Irish trip – A long drive to visit two island gardens near Sneem on the coast.
2017 – CHW
A trip to the greenhouses to select some plant presents for our hosts on the trip next weekend.
To my surprise all menziesia have been reclassified by the taxonmists as rhododendrons just to confuse us. These used to grow in the rockery and here are some replacements.
Menziesia ciliicalyx (Rhododendron ciliicalyx)
Then a long day making another 25 to 30 video clips for the website including crossing a camellia, magnolia and a rhododendron.Here is a picture of my first grandchild, Isla Rose Williams.
A morning looking at new magnolias flowering in Kennel Close. This was not the original plan but a coach load of German tourists disembark at the Top Lodge and the driver turns around refusing to drive on to the beach. It turns out 34 of the 37 passengers are OAPs paying a reduced rate. How nice of them to have to walk all the way back to Top Lodge. It turns out, as I saw, that very few of the group are in fact OAPs so plenty of Germanic cheating here without even a sunbed to dispute.Magnolia x loebneri ‘Lucy Karlson’ has a vigorous upright habit but is otherwise nothing special apart from a hint of pink in a largish flower. Not much different from Magnolia ‘Alixeed’ below.
Most of the day spent filling in 80 pages of Defra’s new format Basic Payment Scheme(BPS). Around 700 field parcels/split field crops to comply with the latest Brussels diktats. We have now spent about 85 hours between three of us filling in these wretched forms which were originally to be completed online. The main computer could not cope when our application was half done and we had to start again on paper as in previous years. The new computer system has cost Defra £154 million which will be no doubt deducted from the money eventually paid to UK farmers. If Europe wants cheap food and insists on subsidising farmers then at least they could get the admin right rather than giving us all nightmares with the gigantic rule books. Oh for a free market in agricultural produces as in New Zealand.
2003 – FJW
First martins seen – season a little later than last year.
1994 – FJW
First rainfall week for many months.
1990 – FJW
Chips died. Over 230 trees felled by January storms in Castle Wood alone.
1976 – FJW
Marvellous year for nearly everything – very dry – warm Easter – 3500 round garden.
1932 – JCW
I am only sure of one Calophytum bud. Daffs nearly over. The early Thomsonii x blood red remain good. Maddeni x.
1920 – JCW
Much as in 1918. Maddeni hybrids are good.
1918 – JCW
R davidsonianum go off. R yunnanense come on. Broughton’s are good, zuelanicum crosses slow colour. Auklandii not yet at their best. R lanatum and campylocarpum are both nice. I saw the first goldfinch yesterday. The daffs are nearly all gone.
1914 – JCW
One Auklandii open, R lanatum shows colour, R lepidotum flowers for the first time. R racemosum is very good in the Drive.
1913 – JCW
Gauntlett’s plant hardly shows colour. Some buds of Auklandii show colour, no recurvas quite open. Clematis montana rubra is nice. Broughtonii hybrids at their best and so R fargesii.
1911 – JCW
A lot of hot sun and dry cold wind, daffs are going back and in many instances only half developed. Gauntletts ‘afghanicum’ looks nice, some buds of Auklandii just show colour.
1905 – JCW
Niveum open; picked a bud of Auklandii; daffs for the most part over; cold; crossing over excepting Recurvas. Been a useful year on the whole, but too cold for the midland people.
1902 – JCW
Tulips at their best in the grap. We are ten days earlier than 1901. Thomsonii at its best, we are only a few days later than 1897.
1901 – JCW
This is about the best day of this season for I have picked the buds of most of the Lulworth things, and Madam de Graaf is nearly all open. No Horace open yet but very nearly. Thomsonii well out also Hodgsoni, Blood Red and various other Arboreums.
1897 – JCW
Parrot tulips nearly at their best, one or two roses open. Wild primroses at their best, also Dielytras and white Trilliums.
Could they be Rh. Hodgsonii?
My first thought but I think they are too purple when first out compared to our other plants of Rh hodgsonii.