2022 – CHW

Steve Dance took this photograph of Camellia ‘Spring Festival’ (C. cuspidata x unknown pollen parent) at Rosemoor near Lady Anne Palmer’s former house. Has it been clipped into shape or does it just have a very erect and upright habit when mature? Jennifer Trehane’s book confirms that it does have an upright habit. Bred in California in 1976.

Steve also took these pictures of Magnolia (Michelia) champaca in a glasshouse at Kew in early April. We have just ordered plans from Nick Macer but perhaps doubtful hardiness?

This is the last of the potential original Wilson 50 azaleas for Polly Cooke to help try to identify. A group of three elderly plants up from the Green Gate. We now have quite a file for Polly in this early flowering year.

The final bit of tree clearing outside the Kitchen Garden towards Giddle Orchard.

The stream has also been dug down around 4ft to its original level.

You can now clearly see the extent of the wall repairs so far completed and how much more is necessary to rebuild and re-slate the top of the walls.

Last time the walls were cement and stone capped.

Quite a lot of intact slates have been dug out and put aside from the tree clearance but nowhere near enough to replace all that is missing/broken from tree damage and wall collapses.

Tree stumps to kill off around the old middle greenhouse too.

A huge pile of timber and the stock fence back in place.

2021 – CHW
Spraying around the plants in Kennel close today Jaimie spotted:Carpinus tschonoskii producing its first ever flowers.

Quercus bushii ‘Seattle Trident’ with its superb pink new growth.

Salix magnifica also with its first flower here.

At last, the east wind has gone.

A session with Asia to pin down the names of the 16 camellias planted in 1977 behind Donkey Shoe that were cut down to reshoot six years ago. Perfect cutting material here for the autumn. Of the 16 only 11 have survived (one was moved) and the old plans take a bit of working out with the reference books to get the names of what are left absolutely right and labelled accordingly. One remains unlabelled and not on any of the plans and one of the reticulata varieties disliked being cut down and died. The other missing plants may have been killed off when those around them pinched all the light.

Camellia ‘Julia Hamiter’

Camellia ‘Bob’s Tinsie’

Camellia ‘Ada Pieper’

Camellia ‘Wilbur Foss’

Camellia ‘Dear Jenny’

Camellia ‘Cecille Brunazzi’

Camellia ‘Grand Slam’

2020 – CHW
The government have very efficiently reimbursed us for the 80% of the wages paid last week to our staff who have been ‘furloughed’. Amazing that under all this pressure HMRC has performed miracles.Apparently the cost is already £4.5bn countrywide and there will be another month’s wages due in about four weeks’ time.No sign of the BBC letting anyone say ‘well done’ of course. The minute’s silence for deceased NHS workers held the headlines for yesterday.This is state totalitarianism but with benign intent which is something of a contradiction in terms. However I do wonder how many of those furloughed will actually find that they have jobs to come back to in the highstreets, catering and hospitality sectors. Social distancing will mean huge cuts in staff numbers.The tiny corner shops have had a bonanza and the supermarkets have tightened their grip on their monopoly of food sales but what of the rest of the food industry who supply the events and hospitality market? As with all draconian impositions there are winners and losers.Unemployment is projected to rise by five million and, it is claimed, that one in four small businesses will never reopen. ‘Deaths’ are impossible for politicians to countenance on their watch in an epidemic but it may yet be that herd immunity (as in Sweden) was the cheaper option and a far more realistic one for our economic future and wellbeing.Juniperus recurva var. ‘Coxii’ has made a beautiful tree tucked away in shelter behind some ‘Cornish Reds’. It is now available (cutting grown) in the nursery from Asia’s propagation which needs to continue.

Fagus sylvatica ‘Pendula Aurea’ I bought from Lees & Co 20+ years ago. It did a few Chelseas and is now doing well here. Wonderful colour on its trailing branches.

2016 – CHW
The gardeners have completed the cutting up of the huge beech tree which fell on top of Higher Quarry Nursery after about four days’ work for three of them. Enough fire wood for the castle for years. Surprisingly the trunk, which had split on impact, contained no rot at all. The strength of the north wind alone brought it down.

Astonishingly the vast majority of the newly planted out specie rhododendrons mainly from wild collected Chinese seed have survived more or less intact amid a sea of wood shavings. The lyonia has been cut down and will obviously reshoot but a fine clump of Rhododendron formosum is no more and also the old clump of Rhododendron camplogynum has been destroyed.

The new rhododendron planting area outside the front gate has been cleared of stumps ready for planting on Tuesday.

At the edge of the clearing is a 15ft tall Enkianthus perulatus flowering early as the leaves emerge. I have never seen this plant in full flower before but there is another at Hardy and Bert’s nursery of a similar age. Delicate white flowers and wrong on the Burncoose website currently where it shows a picture of Enkianthus campanulatus.

Another Magnolia ‘Genie’ has made good growth in a sheltered spot here. One or two flowers are becoming much larger and very much more like they are at home in New Zealand.

Following Arthur’s retirement the new farm office is nearly complete beside the old blacksmith’s shop and Smiths Gore have given us all the desks, chairs, filing cabinets etc we could ever need to fill it. They moved office yesterday from Lemon Villas to their new combined office with Savills lower down Lemon Street.
2015 – CHWOff to Tregrehan to photograph some more ‘Endangered in the Wild’ plants in the garden there and borrow a few rare plants for the Chelsea stand.Podocarpus matudae from Mexico and Guatemala fits this bill.  As we look closely to photograph the mature plants Tom Hudson, the owner, notices large red fruits in two parts(pod and receptacle).  Tom’s plants are both female but it turns out that there is a third younger plant nearby which must be a male.  Perhaps a new first in the UK for this very rare and tender plant.

No visit to Tregrehan would be complete without a viewing of Melliodendron xylocarpum.  This tree has huge pinkish white star-like flowers many times the size of any styrax specie flowers.  A must have plant for every woodland gardener.

Michelia maudiae is in full flower as are many other species.  We discuss the likelihood that at least two other named species are soon to be reclassified as forms of maudiae.  If the naming of michelia species was always difficult this makes the problem worse.  Tom’s Michelia floribunda is very different indeed to the 100 year old Caerhays plant which has much more of an orange tinge to its flowers than his.Tom’s collection of new tenderish Chinese/Vietnamese introductions is quite unique and nothing like it exists elsewhere in the UK.

Aesculus wangii is 20 feet tall.  Ours is about four feet and we have lost three out of five planted out.  Tom says it is very early into leaf and loses come from late frost.