Magnolia ‘Black Tulip’ x M. campbellii ‘Darjeeling’.

The new Magnolia ‘Romance’ now full out.

Magnolia ‘Venus’ is a cross between M. ‘Black Tulip’ and M. ‘Pickard’s Ruby’. The flower really does represent both parents and will be very popular.

Magnolia mollicomata ‘Werrington’.

Magnolia ‘Brombeer’ now further out.

Magnolia ‘Vulcan’ x M. ‘Black Tulip’ now full out.

Magnolia ‘Laura Saylor’.

2024 – CHW
I need photographs for the website of Magnolia salicifolia ‘Rosea’ but it is nowhere near out yet. Triple stemmed as you see here.

Michelia maudiae and Magnolia cylindrica.

Just a hint of pink at the base of the flowers in our original dwarfish Magnolia cylindrica.

Wind scorching on the leaves of Podocarpus henkelii is recent.

But beside it Acer mandshuricum is already in full leaf. A high risk species!

Leaves emerging on Acer palmatum ‘Orange Dream’.

Magnolia ‘Tina Durio’ is an excellent smallish growing white magnolia. We now have 3 in the garden. Good against a black sky.

Phil Savage’s Magnolia ‘Big Dude’ is not that huge a flower really but a nice thing. (M. x soulangeana ‘Wada’s Picture’ x M. sprengeri ‘Diva’). Similarly M. ‘Mossman’s Grant’ and M. ‘Frank’s Masterpiece’, which both grow nearby, are not huge flowers either by comparison to modern day hybrids. All 3 USA bred.

Magnolia ‘Todd’s Fortyniner’ still performing 6 weeks after we saw it first in colour. Leaves now appearing. How has it lasted so well through such filthy weather?

The old cones on Araucaria angustifolia are now starting to disintegrate.

Magnolia campbellii var. alba seedling and Magnolia ‘Kew’s Surprise’.

Magnolia campbellii var. alba seedling and Magnolia ‘Black Tulip’.

Rhododendron cilpinense and Rhododendron moupinense at the entrance to the gardens. These are seldom full out at the same time together.

2023 – CHW
Jaimie spots a rare (for us) group of Crocus amid a bank of naturalised wild daffodils in the Aucklandii Garden.

Camellia lecture and tour today. Rhododendron lutescens and Rhododendron arboreum subsp. delavayi out together by the main quarry.

Then to Tregrehan and the sight of seeds on Schefflera rhododendrifolia with a distinct trunk up against the east facing side of the house.

Seeds on Sarcococca wallichii.

Nestegis cunninghamii. A New Zealand genus.

Illicium simonsii in full flower. Some pleasantly scented and some not.

Rhododendron ramsdenianum very fine. A hybrid not a species dating from the 1920’s.

A wild collected but unnamed Luculia species. Very different from L. gratissima and growing outside in full shade as a shrub.

Brassaiopsis bodinieri in a Tregrehan greenhouse. We have already lost this once outside but are trying again.

Strelitzia nichollii growing inside and now in the Burncoose catalogue. This species has white flowers.

Melastomajacene [?] from Ecuador. Extraordinary thing.

Seed heads on Vallea stipularis which I have not see before.

Dichroa in leaf and flower in March!

2022 – CHW

Just look at this bit of fly tipping in the road between Trencreek and Rosevallon farms which occurred on the evening of 6th March. The council had to shut the road to clear the mess which was, fortunately, not in one of our gateways leaving it for us to pay for the clear up ourselves. Surely someone on the Roseland Peninsula knows who this builder might have been who collected this rubbish from a site?

In 1981 the Queen Mother planted this magnolia seedling by Georges Hut. A Magnolia mollicomata x Magnolia sargentiana robusta seedling with more trace of the former in the flower.

Only the petals (tepals) now remain under the New Zealand form of Magnolia ‘Lanarth’.

Two young plants of Camellia reticulata ‘Captain Rawes’ now in full flower. Floppy plants which need serious staking. Enormous flowers compared to those on our elderly and dying plants on Rookery Path or below the greenhouses.

A few of our entries for the RHS Rosemoor Early Camellia Competition show on Saturday:

Camellia ‘Ruby Wedding’

Camellia reticulata – white form

Nearly open magnolia buds picked from the garden winds today and wrapped in loo paper for the show.

Camellias in buckets for the Rosemoor display of x williamsii camellia varieties.

The magnolia flowers are all set up for tomorrow’s lecture (full house). Not as many as usual to display as the winds have damaged a lot in the last few days.

2021 – CHW
Then came gales and rain after three nights of frosts. Another problem for the magnolias this year but the wind is in the south west so will be over the top of them and they should get through it.I had forgotten where we had planted this large Cinnamomum japonicum and had been looking for it for the last three days as it is a new introduction into the Burncoose catalogue and needs to be photographed! It was in Old Park nestled in by an old Quercus acuta and a Quercus phillyreoides.

Tree surgery on more sweet chestnuts in Old Park. Some felled, some with just dead branches removed. All under a statutory felling order.

One forgets what a frost pocket Old Park is where the valley is much narrower. Here a Magnolia ‘Caerhays Belle’ which will not be wasting any energy this year on its flowers!

One day on and the beech tree above Higher Quarry Nursery is nearly dealt with. The Aucuba hedge will hopefully reshoot but not many plants left this end of the nursery bed. Not that much rot in the centre of the trunk of the beech tree. An unusual direction to the wind (NE) caused it to topple prematurely.

For the last fortnight we had been wondering why the lake was still so full. The sluice gate hinges had rusted off and the sluice had dropped down preventing any water from flowing except over the top of it. New metalwork and a new wooden cross beam now while a rope does the job for the moment.

A load of laurels for planting out as shelterbelts in the Rookery and below Hovel Cart Road.

Just two flowers on Magnolia ‘Big Dude’ this year. They are certainly large!

A pink form of Camellia granthamiana which may not be correctly named as granthamiana normally has pendant white flowers. The leaf looks correct though.

Camellia ‘Drama Girl’ just coming out with its gigantic flowers.

The Magnolia campbellii which took 43 years to first flower is just out in the mist and drizzle. Very pale in colour and quite small flowers but they are the right shape.

The first acer into leaf that I have so far seen this year – Acer tegmentosum ‘Joe Witt’.

Michelia doltsopa rushing out in the mizzle by Georges Hut.

The original Magnolia ‘Delia Williams’ now full out but no blue sky today to see it properly.

This is the second flowering of Jaimie’s latest magnolia hybrid. A cross between Magnolia campbellii and Magnolia ‘F J Williams’. In the mist the flowers seem a good colour but not (yet) exceptional. The flowers are variable in colour due to wind and frost. It will be another year or two before we can say with certainty that this new hybrid is good enough to perhaps be worth naming. It is not unusual for quick growing magnolia seedlings to settle into a pattern of properly flowering three to four years after their first light flowerings. M. campbellii crosses are notoriously slow to flower as we know.