Rhododendron hotei by George’s Hut has few flowers and is suffering from the last 2 years of drought. It may not survive.

Rhododendron loderi ‘King George’ and Acer palmatum ‘Linearilobum’ look good together.

A Tregrehan sourced Deutzia longifolia is just coming out. The bark on last year’s new growth is very attractive. I had not taken this in before and clearly we need to cut this plant back regularly to encourage this regrowth.

Azalea ‘Barthold Lazzer’ is the first of the 9 clumps of old fashioned Ghent azaleas to flower in Kennel Close. An attractive double flower.

Magnolia ‘Southern Belle’ is just out but again lots of damage to the new growth as you can see here. Magnolia ‘Summer Solstice’ is showing colour nearby. Both these magnolias are a fortnight earlier than in most years. We have had this in flower on our Chelsea stands in the recent past.

A young Abies spectabilis with excellent new growth. The cones on this species are quite spectacular. Seen at Tregothnan over the years.

Rhododendron ‘Beauty of Littleworth’ full out by George’s Hut. This is a Rhododendron griffithianum hybrid.

Over the bank holiday weekend a large oak tree has gone down below the Fernery. A big pile of mess but it is not in the garden area and not very visible.

2023 – CHW

Rhododendron ‘Dr. Stocker’ on the Burncoose drive. This has died out here.

Rhododendron ‘Conroy’ and Rhododendron neriiflorum looking good together.

Rhododendron neriiflorum also on the Burncoose drive.

I am unsure of the name of this evergreen azalea. A bit like ‘Gumpo’ but not quite.

Carpinus fangiana flowering properly for the first time here. The flower tassels will get larger with age. A superb plant and perhaps the best of the Carpinus species? Close running with C. rankanensis? The jury is still out.

Rhododendron xanthocodon at Burncoose – a young plant doing well.

Caerhays lost two Wollemi pines in cold spells after planting. The Burncoose one isn’t looking great after roe deer antler rubbing on its trunk but it is still going.

A recently planted Magnolia tamaulipana with similar roe deer damage nearby. It should have had a wire netting surround.

Bluebells amazing at Burncoose as ever on a Friends of Burncoose tour for 25 tonight.

Three or four years on from planting Magnolia ( manglietia ) insignis is growing well.

A young Rhododendron zaleucum which I have not seen flowering before at Burncoose.

Rhododendron williamsianum x Rhododendron callimorphum (never named or registered ) looking splendid on Burncoose drive. A JCW hybrid

Acanthus sennii dead to ground level after the December frost but has revived in the nursery.

2022 – CHW
The rhododendrons are flopping in the heat and going over quickly now. I also see that the two orchids I spotted and photographed opposite the entrance to Gargus Farm have been dug up and pinched. A particularly foolish thing to pinch since they will very probably die.A garden tour with members of the Maple Society.Yet more female flower cones, a second crop, appearing on Araucaria bidwillii. The mature cones are starting to look yellow and appear ripe.

Our Acer carpinifolium is a female form. Highly promiscuous so the seed are unlikely to come true.

Female flowers now evident on Juglans ailanthifolia. The male catkins which we saw a week ago are now dropping having shed their pollen. I was right that the female flower heads are red!

Acer truncatum var. barbinerve with unusual upright seedpods.

Plenty of flower on Acer campestre in Old Park.

A new plant in the nursery which I had never seen – Zabelia triflora. An Abelia-like plant which makes a similarly erect shrub. Very scented say the reference books but I missed this. Introduced from the Himalayas in 1847, AM 1959, but little known today.

Celastrus orbiculatus in flower which I had not noticed before.

Rhododendron ‘Hachmann’s Charmant’

Rhododendron ‘Hackmann’s Metallica’

2021 – CHW
The Primula candelabra clump beside our new rhododendron planting is expanding.

A young Enkianthus deflexus (APA 112 C31 027064) is pictured here. The flowers do not have the purple veining I would expect from this species? Perhaps they are in fact Enkianthus chinensis or perhaps the veining will show up later as the flowers develop?

Magnolia ‘Judy Zuk’ is improving with age. These flowers are far more like the flowers I first saw at Antony Woodland Garden several years ago.

The first of the Rhododendron royalii hybrids out by Georges Hut.

Acer pseudoplatanus ‘Brilliantissimum’ at its very best in leaf.

Litsea glauca with its new growth. The old tree died, and root suckers have grown up as a clump.

Neolitsea aff. polycarpa with rather different coloured new growth (albeit suckering from the base).

Euphorbia stygiana is now 15ft tall as a tree. Attractive flowers.

A very late flower on Magnolia ‘Sweet Sixteen’ after its drought/cold dieback and pruning last year.

Enkianthus campanulatus ‘Vesta’ at its very best.

Enkianthus campanulatus ‘Venus’ beside it. ‘Victoria’ still not out properly.

Enkianthus campanulatus ‘Hollandia’ is also superb. The best one on the Enkianthus path today.

The very last flower this year on the 1897 planted Magnolia stellata (called Magnolia halleana then).

2020 – CHW
Boris produced an excellent address to the nation last night. Well argued, careful, thoughtful and entirely right in the circumstances. ‘Health’ was, however, still the priority over the return to normality.

Starmer, the unions and the Sturgeon express themselves ‘confused’ at this ‘mixed’ message. Having been part of the inner government COBRA discussions on the end to lockdown it is a bit rich to criticise what you participated in and implicitly agreed. Nevertheless they betray their true colours as regards the economy which they are happy to continue to bankrupt in the interests of safety and the lack of PPE in workplaces. So much for working together to get out of this mess.

One of the most telling revelations over the weekend was that the teaching unions are actually preventing teachers from conducting online classes for children in lockdown because ‘they do not have to’. No thought of their service to the public to educate children of course. Enjoy your ‘holiday’ like the kids are and soon it will be the summer holidays anyway. Why not go camping now and start the summer early.

So what does Boris’ announcement mean for us? The car park will have to reopen on Wednesday. There is no way that we can decently or fairly charge for this initially. We have received the government grants and there is no way that we could collect the money in a socially distanced and safe way for our staff.

Shops to reopen (perhaps) on 1st June but not restaurants. Can we sort out social distancing for takeaway service at the beach café by then or before? Better not be seen to be rushing into this until we know what others are going to do or be allowed to do.

How do you reopen the garden entirely safely unless it is free with no facilities but lots of costs for us in disinfecting loos and providing safety cover for emergencies? I suspect we stick with our previous decision not to reopen this year.

Holiday lets open from 1st June? Better wait and see what the 50 pages of government guidelines say today.

Magnolia ‘Summer Solstice’ in bud.

Cercis canadensis ‘Flame’ making a good show.

Rhododendron ‘Gwilt King’ just out. Normally a certainty for the Chelsea stand but I suppose we are only about a week away.

The bark is peeling nicely on the largest Acer griseum.

Magnolia ‘Coral Pink’ – sparse flowering and only just opening now is a really peculiar magnolia. It is not listed in Eisenhut’s new book which does mention ‘Coral Charm’ but with no real description.

Merillopanax alpinus just coming into leaf. Will it survive with us?

Rhododendron ‘Winsome’ as splendid as ever.

Rhododendron ‘Lemon Meringue’

Rhododendron ‘Lem’s Cameo’

Rhododendron cinnarbarinum Concatenans Group

Rhododendron vaseyi was exceptionally good in shade.

Cornus ‘Venus’ still not fully out but a huge bract!

Fagus grandiflora var. mexicana looks tenderish and has dieback.

Crataegus wattiana now in full flower.

Crataegus coombei (?) with flower.

Two pictures of Meliosma alba (formerly Meliosma beaniana) kindly sent from Borde Hill. They hope to send us seed later. Our plant, as we saw recently, is too ancient to have produced any seed for years.

Cestrum fasciculatum ‘Newellii’

Magnolia sieboldii ‘Jersey Belle’

Another Azalea ‘Caerhays Lavender’ still in new growth in full shade.

Fagus sylvatica ‘Black Swan’ leaves a week on.

Magnolia ‘Summer Solstice’ just out.

A young Magnolia nitida getting going.

Michelia x foggii ‘Allspice’ perfect today. The others now nearly all over.

2019 – CHW
Time to see how many Aesculus species are yet in flower?A young Carpinus rankanensis with coppery young leaves. The wonderful mature plant we saw last Sunday at Wakehurst had male and female flowers but the emerging leaves were lighter and more pinkish.

Aesculus carnea ‘Aureomarginata’ was nearly over.

Magnolia ‘Southern Belle’ is quite similar to ‘Summer Solstice’ but out a week or so before (this proved not to be correct).

Aesculus woerlitzensis with dark red flowers.

Aesculus bushii with much larger double pink flowers with a yellow blotch.

Aesculus chinensis has some individual pink flowers and some yellow ones. Hilliers say some plants sold as this species are Aesculus indica so now I am more than suspicious!

Aesculus glabra I think, the red horse chestnut.

Crataegus wattiana is thornless but colourful today.

A wild collected form of Rhododendron decorum (NN 0907) with quite small flower trusses to what we know as Rh. decorum.

2018 – CHW
Finalising and checking the full list of the plants which will be used on our Chelsea stand as part of the press release and to give out to the public who ask for it as the show. A tedious job which will never be absolutely right as flowers go over and we always take more plants than we will need or use to be certain of only using the absolute best top quality ones. Anyway the RHS like us doing this. It has the added advantage of enabling Louisa and Christine, the stand designers, to prewrite the individual plant labels for each type of plant which we have to have clearly and neatly written with the correct spelling of the Latin names on everything. This is a major issue with the judges and ‘the odd mistake’ is no good and no gold medal!

More importantly, we select half a dozen new and unusual plants which are looking good in the show tunnel (today at least) to feature prominently on the website the weekend before Chelsea Flower Show opens and when the BBC Chelsea coverage also starts. We will substitute these with pictures of the same plants actually on the completed stand on Monday 21st May, the press review day. Not all the six we selected today will necessarily pass the test on the stand but at least we can start to entice new customers to new plants.

We have a brand new and superb acer for the stand which will also be entered for the RHS Plant of the Year competition. So secret is it that, until 21st May, I cannot even tell you its name. A couple of (rather bad) pictures are all I can share for now. You will say you are not impressed yet – but you will be!

2016 – CHW (photos to follow)

A morning with KPK inspecting various medium sized building work jobs on the estate over the next year. The worst problem was the delivery van driver who clonked into the arch at the Top Lodge damaging his van roof quite substantially and considerably moving one coping stone. On closer inspection the cracking and movement of the stones extends all across the arch. A structural engineer inspects tomorrow. It is not going to fall down tomorrow but it presents a risk to the public one day if ignored and will probably cost £10k to dismantle and re-embed in place in the correct alignment. Whether the white van company will pay up or their insurers remains to be seen. Quite a row to come I expect and a pity we do not have a picture of the wrecked roof.Welcome warm rain this afternoon as the leaf on the trees fills out.Karol’s picture of the leaf stipules (scars on the leaf petioles) on our three ‘different’ ancient michelias are looking good. On Michelia floribunda the scars/stipules extend half way up the petiole (or so the reference books say) but on Michelia doltsopa only one fifth of the way up the petiole according to Magnolias of China, the newish Chinese reference book. I will share these pictures with you shortly and do not feel we have proved whether we do have a M floribunda or not. The paper which I have written on michelia naming and identification is coming on nicely.Below is a list of new styracacae varieties which arrived today from Mark Bulk’s nursery in Holland to add to our growing collection. Pterostyrax psilophyllus is particularly rare and has an odd leaf with three points at the end of it. I saw this at Windsor on Monday and had coveted it then but forgotten it was on order anyway since I had never seen it before.Pterocarya pterocarpaPterocarya rehderianaPterostyrax leveilleiPterostyrax psilophyllusStyrax jap ColumnarStyrax jap HymeStyrax jap SnowconeStyrax jap Jippei-Kawamure

2015 – CHWTom Hudson visits to view our growing enkianthus collection and to ponder the correct naming of some.  We hear the first cuckoo of the year at 4.30pm in Old Park.The four ‘V’s bred at or selected seedlings from Esvelt Nurseries in Holland are strutting their stuff but there is little doubt that ‘Vesta’ is the best today.
Enkianthus ‘Vesta’ has long racemens of bell-shaped red flowers.  The four plants we looked at were laden to the brim with flowers and fully visible from a long way off.

E ‘Venus’ was out first and its much paler striped and tinged pink flowers show in circular clusters.  They show up better as the plant comes into leaf and are half hidden when eventually the leaf is full out.

Enkianthus ‘Victoria’ – is again quite a sight.  Its reddish striped bells are more elongated and not quite as far out as ‘Vesta’.  Today is the second best of the four but might well take the top prize in a week.

Enkianthus ‘Virgo’ this is a much newer introduction to Caerhays flowering here (but not Burncoose) for the first time.  Paler and more greenish than ’Venus’ but still plastered in flower at a young age.My vote had previously always gone to the earlier flowering ‘Venus’ but not this year or not today anyway.  Venus is too far gone for Chelsea but ‘Victoria’ may well make a splash on the stand.  All the enkianthus should go onto the lorry tomorrow or Wednesday for the trip.  Last year they were shedding flowers and did not look that special on the stand.

One Enkianthys deflexus (which I could not find last year although I know we have at least three other mature-ish plants somewhere) is in the group of four different plants on the drive.  It is still in tight bud but you can see the tinge of purple at the base of the bells.  It looks true to name and Tom confirms the leaves have the correct hairy edges.