2022 – CHW

A garden tour after a week at Chelsea. New growth flourishing everywhere but most of the rhododendrons have now gone over.

Stewartia pteropetiolata just out into flower. Styrax still in bud.

Magnolia acuminata ‘Blue Opal’ flowering well for the first time in Kennel Close.

Magnolia obovata perfectly out.

Rosa roxburgii is flowering sparsely and probably needs chopping down again.

Tail end flowers on Rhododendron concinnum.

A seedling Rhododendron falconeri flowering well in the bottom of Main Quarry (Rh. ovatum in the foreground). The old plants on Rookery Path have few flowers high up this year and are having a year off.

2021 – CHW
Work started five weeks ago to convert three barns in the hamlet of Trevarrick into dwellings. Fortunately the foundations of these barns sit on bedrock so underpinning all the walls with concrete should be unnecessary. This may be a major cost saving on the project. The foundations for the extension to the smallest of the barns are already laid with radon sumps as is now mandatory (but quite absurd) in locations like this.

Rhododendron (Azalea) calendulaceum ‘Sandling orange-red form’ is new to us and flowering for the first time. Unspectacular perhaps but an interesting colour. A very variable species.

The Paulownia tomentosa ‘Lilacina’ clump above the greenhouse lived only about 30 years. Exponential growth, a brief spectacle from the bottom lodge when in flower for 10 years or so, and a very short life in our climate. Just the stumps left to burn up. Very soft and spongy wood.

Uplifting a beech tree and a Cornus to give more light to clumps of scented rhododendrons which were being deprived of light. A vital job in parts of the garden which are 20 to 30 years old. The dappled shade from young trees on a newly planted hot bank is initially a good idea but needs managing over time. More light too for a nearby and rare Quercus morii.

A fine clump of Azalea ‘Rosebud’ just coming into flower. Late for an evergreen like the ‘Elsie Lee’ seen last Sunday.

A small tail end flower on Camellia ‘Drama Girl’; one of several and there will still be colour here in June.

2020 – CHW
With all the outrage about Dominic Cummings’ visit to the north to drop off his young child with his grandparents as he and his wife had corona everyone seems to have missed the news that corona deaths have fallen to nearly 100 per day.

Half a million more unemployed for every week that lockdown continues? The blame game will soon switch to the economic costs of COVID and the government remains damned either way.

This ridiculous lockdown must end soon! Bankruptcy looms on a multitude of fronts and Brexit will soon be widely blamed too for making the economy worse. What a cataclysmic disaster that was panic led, panic maintained and totally disproportionate to the economic misery it has and will cause.

Fifty to seventy house martins flying over the lawn – I guess the first hatch off have become airborne.

This is the late flowering very dark red evergreen azalea clump above Rogers Quarry which Asia has propagated. It is different in colour (darker) to the clump on the drive below Hovel Cart Road and Hovel Turning which is also worth propagating. No idea of the names of either.

This is another very slightly different clump of the same above the two tallest Magnolia x veitchii. Jaimie may be able to name this one? Planted as a clump in the 1980s when this area was cleared and the camellias planted behind it.

The flowers of Cornus kousa var. chinensis ‘Wisley Queen’ are greenish-cream in the shade and already turning reddish in the sun. A gift from Richard Carew-Pole when he was RHS President.

The dogs bring me a still warm dead squirrel with blood on the back of its head and neck. Exactly as a stoat or ferret would kill a rabbit. This is not how a buzzard would kill a squirrel with its talons. Perhaps a fox or fox cub but why did the dogs not give chase? More likely a stoat surprised a squirrel on the ground or perhaps a polecat which was seen recently in a Rescassa garden and which has been seen a few times over the last 18 months. I saw it once at night by Burrough Close but assumed it was an escaped ferret.

The azaleas below Green Gate.

Azaleas and late flowering rhodos in the Rookery.

Rhododendron ‘Barbarella’ planted recently in Rookery Nursery.

Azalea ‘Chinzia’ flowering away nearby. I cannot find the name in Galle’s azalea reference book so am suspicious if this is the correct spelling?

Alniphyllum fortunei was planted in too cold a place and has two-thirds dieback which I cut out.

Pittosporum illiciodes f. angustifolium with tiny yellow flowers again this year – second flowering.

Ditto Ptelia baldwinii.

Persea thunbergii just putting on its red new growth.

Attractive reddish new growth on Eucalyptus mannifera var. praecox.

Azalea ‘Sans de Gentbrugge’ is very close to ‘Corneille’.

Cornus kousa ‘Ed Mezitt’ with its first flowers with us. They seem to start pinker and fade. Large bracts.

Cornus alternifolia covered in bees and full out.

Flowers just out on Rhaphiolepsis indica.

Fallen leaves under Quercus acuta and fallen rhodo flowers as well.

Maytenus boaria with its drooping branches.

Meliosma veitchiorum in full flower.

This Pinus insignis will shed more branches very soon.

You can just see a few tail end Michelia doltsopa flowers through the pine branches.

A self-sown Rhododendron ponticum and Rhododendron decorum seedling by what was once Lower Quarry Nursery.

Rhododendron stamineum – very few flowers this year.

Plenty of social distancing on the beach.

2019 – CHW
A catch up on some of the best rhododendrons still out in the garden despite this very early season.

Rhododendron arizelum flowering better than I ever remember.

Rhododendron decorum (white form) by Tin Garden is slightly later out than some of our older plants.

Rhododendron ‘Fabia’ has a low spreading habit and is just as good as ‘Winsome’.

Rhododendron ‘Yellow Petticoats’ is orange-red in bud opening yellow. The plants are absolutely covered in flower.

Rhododendron ‘Lady Montagu’ was nearly over but some decent flowers remain. I saw this at Chelsea too.

Rhododendron cinnarbarinum Concatenans Group flowering properly for the first time since planting in 2013. We could now try to recreate the cinnarbarinum x concatenans cross which produced ‘Caerhays Philip’, ‘Caerhays John’ and ‘Caerhays Lawrence’. These died out in the mildew/rust epidemic 25 years ago which affected only certain rhododendron species then. However, when I look it up, the cross actually involved cinnarbarinum xanthocodon and cinnarbarinum blandfordiflorum. Anyway nice to know that cinnarbarinum and concatenans are both again flourishing at Caerhays.

A young bamboo called Chusquea gigantea has decided to flower and die in Kennel Close just when it was getting going. The inflorescences are pretty but short lived before a quick death leaving only some seeds. If planted and grown on these too will seed and die. Such is the cycle of bamboo species flowering. The fifth or sixth in my time here and at Burncoose. I fear that the mature Burncoose clump may now also flower and die.

2018 – CHW
A trip to look at aesculus species in flower in Kennel Close. What an addition to woodland gardening this genus is late in May and in early June.Aesculus pavia ‘Atrosanguinea’, the Red Buckeye, full out and very floriferous as a small tree. A yellow flash in the trumpets.

Aesculus woerlitzensis, a rare and relatively new species, is rather less floriferous and paler in colour. Also a yellow flash in the trumpets.

Double white (and sterile) flowers on Aesculus hippocastanum ‘Baumannii’ (‘Flore Pleno’). I have not seen this out before but the flowers are impressive.

Aesculus x carnea ‘Briotii’ with attractive pink flowers.

Aesculus flava, a different plant with not as good a yellow flower as the one the day before yesterday. A more immature plant perhaps.

Aesculus sylvatica. Very dense panicles with red insides to the trumpets. Another one we have not seen in flower before here.

Aesculus x bushii has individual flowers that are red, pink or yellow. Male and female flowers by the look of it?

Flowers (white) just opening on the rare Aesculus chinensis which may have the tallest racemes of flowers of any aesculus species.

Aesculus x carnea which is not as dark pink as Aesculus x carnea ‘Briottii’. A tree smashed half of this plant so flowers are sparse.

Aesculus x neglecta (Aesculus glaucescens) is going over. The flowers are pale yellow and a much lighter colour than Aesculus flava.

Aesculus x mutabilis ‘Induta’ is a slow growing dome shaped tree with apricot flowers with yellow markings. Today it is the best show of any of the 12 aesculus species and hybrids now flowering away here today. This one is an excellent plant for a smaller garden. Ours was planted in 2007 and is now about 6ft tall with a similar spread.

There are half a dozen aesculus varieties which have yet to flower here. Some are growing too vigorously to bother yet. Aesculus wilsonii is a week or two away from flowering. A wonderful new display here from conker trees which we tend to view as common or dull.

2017 – CHW
The Rhododendron ‘Tally Hoo’ x elliotii on the drive may not have made it to Chelsea when cut but the plants on the drive remain nice enough.

A good clean up where a small oak tree had fallen into some Rhododendron nobleanum. Past experience suggests they will reshoot vigorously.

Rhododendron ‘Treberrick’ looking very fine above Orchid House Nursery. Rhododendron ‘Moses Maroon’ x griersonianum I believe.

Rhododendron sinonuttallii (also known as Rhododendron nuttallii) is just out above the greenhouse. Greenish in bud fading to white. The adjacent plant seeded heavily last year and has no flowers this time. The other two are looking good.

This ancient gaultheria species has never had a name in my time. Any ideas anyone?

During Chelsea week the men have cleared a wonderful extension to the Rookery Nursery bed. All ready to fence and plant up now.

They have even removed the beech stump and trunk which fell earlier in the year.

I seem to have missed the very late flowering ponticum hybrids below Rookery Nursery. Normally out in mid June but this year is very early and the heat (here too) of Chelsea week has done for them.

I have missed the vast majority of the deciduous azaleas too in the week away. Out and over in just 10 days or so. This is a late flowering Ghent azalea variety of which we have several clumps. There is an attractive orange centre to the somewhat sparse flowers.

I thought I had seen enough Primula helodoxa on our Chelsea stand but there is now a good show outside my study window.