2016 – CHW
Two very different forms of Hydrangea sargentiana. The first looks more like Hydrangea villosa but the bark seems wrong for villosa while the second (seen previously in this year’s diary) has much larger leaves and is nearly over.
The true Hydrangea villosa on the opposite side of the drive is virtually over too.

Not a lot to differentiate the two species in some clones.

Hydrangea aspera ssp robusta is still in tight bud but its leaf and bark is virtually identical to Hydrangea sargentiana. But for the very late flowering of robusta you would be very pushed to tell them apart.

2015 – CHW
More heavy rain and the holiday season at its zenith. Typical Cornish summer but wonderful for second growth in the garden. Grass cutting nearly finished but we will definitely need a full second cut after all this rain. Cotoneaster horizontalis putting on its show of orange berries early after the wet weather. A lovely herringbone effect. This climber or groundcover plant used to do the same job as the Rubus tricolor (Korean raspberry) did (see Tuesday 18th August).

Erigerion karvinskianus (mucronatus) opposite the front door is a marvellous plant for semi naturalising in a wall or hedge and self seeds everywhere. It flowers all summer with white flowers turning pink. An absolute must for coastal gardens and a plant which Burncoose sells in hundreds.

A few leftovers from the film crew, plastic flowers in the Camellia Lady Clare, fake urns with plastic flowers and a decorated summerhouse. It all goes tomorrow thankfully.  If you don’t know already parts of the Caerhays Estate (mainly East Portholland) are featured in the new Tim Burton movie to be released in 2016, called Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

The Echium pinnifolium flower is now dead and seeding hard but next year’s crop of this biannual plant looks ready to go outside the Drawing Room window.