2022 – CHW

Thankfully a gold medal for the Burncoose stand.

The stand looks wonderful and the Cornus ‘Venus’ the showstopper.Vanda ‘Platinum Jubilee’ – an orchid named for the royal event.

The day is marked by three severe thunderstorms and a clap of thunder directly overhead causes some visitors sheltering in the Great Pavilion to scream out loud. Plenty of flooding and our seed sales rack gets wet.

Trade is as furious as I can remember for several years with four of us flat out on the stand. The three Cornus on the stand together with Calycanthus ‘Aphrodite’ and the Embothrium cause endless enquiries and the seed buying overseas visitors are back.

2021 – CHW

First decent flowering of a young Syringa wilsonii. Attractive but not that unique I suspect.

New leaf on Lagerstroemia limii.

Susyn Andrews confirms this as Photinia beauvardiana with its lovely brown new growth and hawthorn flowers coming. Semi evergreen but leafless after this spring.

Viburnum prunifolium in flower.

Laburnocytisus ‘Adamii’ in full flower.

Rhododendron yakusimanum ‘Koichiro Wada’ performing well.

Rhododendron ‘Crosswater Belle’ finally getting established and starting to flower properly. Very slow to get going and does not like cold east winds at all!

The full name of this holly is Ilex cornuta ‘Burfordii’. We had got as far as Ilex cornuta and noticed the considerable lack of spines in comparison to our other plant of I. cornuta but needed Susyn to put us right.

Abies delavayi with male flowers and a (hopefully) receptive female seed cone.

Eucalyptus leucoxylon ‘Rosea’ just coming into flower although we do not, as yet, see any pink! An attractive and unusual species which was cut to the ground by cold in its youth but is now putting on a show.

2020 – CHW
I have been bored into submission and now start the final large job of lockdown which is to actually write up the 1895 to today garden diary in my own hand for the last year rather than just writing this long pictorial diary online each day (with or without the odd non gardening topic of late).Keeping Volume 2 of the garden diary (only four family authors in 125 years) seems to be an important part of our archive history. Edwina has given me encouragement to ‘get on with it’ by printing the online version for the last two years since I last caught up with the written diary itself.This was to be an Isle of Wight holiday job (if we ever get there which I now doubt a bit) but I am sure I will find something else to do there. The overwhelming desire is to get up and do something productive, to take everyone off furlough, and ‘get on with it’. BUT what is there to ‘get on with’ until the lockdown is lifted further?Frustration turns to irritability at the stupidities of all this from an economic point of view. I desperately want our staff back at work and financial normality for them and their families as well as our tourist businesses.My initial estimate of our financial loss is not far out at all after 65 to 67 days. Even the bloody Chinese withdrew the total lockdown in Wuhan after 72.Why must we wait until 4th July as we are told? Come on Boris, give us a break on 1st June and get on with it!Eight weeks ago the ‘entitlement’ plea from all sectors of the media and nation came to the fore with the public purse. Now (as then) our only ‘entitlement’ is the right to health (in isolation) and not (yet) the right to work. Younger generations will be driven to the scrapheap and the country driven even further into a recession as no one living has ever seen UNLESS (careful) common sense prevails at last.The recession will be government’s fault and the BBC will extract their pound of flesh for this for the next decade DESPITE pleading daily now for lockdown to remain for our ‘safety’ and school teachers etc. There should be a balance and we should be allowed to take our own risks. In a ‘war’ situation you have to take risks!Had Boris not nearly died where would we be today? Would the treasury have prevailed, as Rishi Sunak is now trying to explain? In the end we will be entitled to nothing but unemployment and higher taxes.A trip to the greenhouse to inspect the plants which arrived from Crûg Farm a week or two ago. I did not actually photograph any or even locate all of them.Another flower out on Magnolia fraseri var. pyramidalis and still one bud to go. Four flowers on a four to five year old plant in a pot is unusual.

Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon’ disliked being outside even in the mildest winter but is flowering again even if the leaves are not very pretty.

Firmania simplex in the greenhouse has, already, a decent set of leaves unlike the one growing outside which I photographed a couple of days ago.

Quercus trojana was a gift last year from the International Dendrology Society members after their tour here. Nicely in leaf and growth now. The plaque will go out with the tree next spring.

Ilex dimorphophylla with berries and new growth as a six month rooted cutting! Part of a good batch and a new holly species for the 2022 catalogue I suppose.

We called this ‘Bacon and Eggs’ as children. Growing in a bareish patch on the bank opposite the front door. I need the wild flower book I was using last summer in Yorkshire to track this down but I cannot currently put my hand on it.

This plant is a cross between Hydrangea serratifolia and Hydrangea peruviana which we hope will climb this dead oak tree trunk. It is taking hold. A gift from Tregrehan where it is 30-40ft up a live tree.

First flowers on a newly planted Syringa wilsonii (now S. tomentella apparently).

I cannot identify this elderly rhododendron which is a fine show tucked away behind Georges Hut.

Alniphyllum aff. eberhardii is now about 15ft tall. Huge amounts of new growth but no sign of any flowers yet. I wonder when in the year this genus does flower? Related to Styrax and Halesia so presumably about now?

Castanopsis sieboldii has also made good new growth despite the dry weather.

A young Quercus uvarifolius has suffered in the dry and has dieback which I prune out. It looks (I hope) worse than it is as it has shed its old last year’s leaves.

Calycanthus floridus ‘Athens’ also has some minor dieback but is flowering quite nicely. Green first then yellowish. I saw this first years ago on James Harris’ stand at Chelsea but it was a long time before I could obtain a plant.

What I think is one of my father’s elliotii hybrids – very dark and late into flower.

Pittosporum adaphniphylloides has made exceptional new growth.

Still plenty of flowers on Magnolia ‘Summer Solstice’.

Illicium majus with good new growth of 9-12in.

Clethra fabri has very dark new growth.

Just one flower on a young Halesia macgregorii this year. It over seeded mightily last year and is now ‘resting’.

Merrilopanax alpinus now coming nicely into leaf. I need not have worried.

A late flowering Rhododendron loderi ‘King George’ tucked away out of sight. Excellent today.

Staphylea holocarpa ‘Innocence’ with numerous clusters of bladder nuts. This small tree or shrub has never produced bladders before.

Cornus kousa ‘Doubloon’ suddenly out.

Nearly the best thing in the garden today is the clump of Symplocos paniculata in full flower outside the front gates.

2019 – CHW
We desperately need rain and the first few spring planted shrubs are already dead while others look starved. Rain on Sunday hopefully.A roe buck sadly caught up in the sheep fencing below the drive which Jaimie discovered when spraying.

2016 – CHW
Arrived at Chelsea this morning to find we had been awarded another Gold medal.
Unlike last year, but understandably, I get to the stand before Justin and discover that the judges have been impressed by the theme of the centenary as well as the stand and given both Burncoose and Millais gold medals, while the group got a silver gilt medal for their stand. (Read details of gold award for Burncoose.) Everyone is very happy. In the main marquee it turns out there are 67 gold medals which is an all-time record and probably well-deserved when you look around. The judges have been less generous with the outdoor gardens which strikes us as pretty fair.Meanwhile consternation on the hosta/railway stand with the boss saying to me ‘Yes, Charlie, I know about plants not railway carriages’. The plants are pretty crap though and they have been awarded a silver medal (note, not the same as a silver gilt). But then the skulduggery starts with the RHS clearly feeling embarrassed that the key note monument stand failed to win gold for the first time in living memory. The RHS want to give it an upgrade but the judges are not having it and a frightful row is starting behind the scenes. After much debate the silver medal remains silver and the queues to come aboard the train are 200 yards long which obscures the hostas which do not sell at all. Bowdens put out special offers signs which the RHS then demand are to be removed although no one quite knows what the rules say about special offers. Bowdens refuse to remove the special offer signs so a standoff is achieved by evening with the prospect of much more fun and rows to come.

Wolfgang Bopp returns to the stand as he is obliged to do as head judge to tell us what the judges thought. Last year we were told that although we got gold our stand was far from perfect and had room for improvement. This year he is much politer and really not finding much fault despite our drooping ‘Ruby Hart’. He did however state that the judges did not like the black and white steps but were impressed we had removed the hard edges by using skeletal magnolia leaves. So it really is the last minute details. Well done Gerry who produced the leaves from her handbag late on Sunday night.

Lizzy and I attend the president’s buffet lunch which is pretty dull apart from the Yorkshireman who receives the best in marquee trophy for his stand of January flowering hepaticas. It has taken him three years of trialling to hold back the small flowers in cold store for the show. Amazingly the RHS had banned him from entering as they considered his entry not interesting enough. A degree of egg on face as the chairman announced the award. The award winner is overcome with tears and the BBC roll up to capture the moment.

We also attend the president’s drinks where there are no chairs for the tired exhibitors and I complain to the chairman who agrees and the catering manager gets a bollocking. The president’s young sons are there – an interesting combination. One of them has a palm oil business in Sierra Leone. We stagger back to Paultons Square where Sir Brian is having an impromptu dinner party with Martin Lewis, the former news presenter. I survive two courses hopefully without saying anything too silly and, obviously plastered, retire thankfully to bed.

2015 – CHW

Recovering from the wedding revelry which went on on the lawn until 2.30am.  Good income but a lot of hassle too and absolutely no photos for security reasons as the groom is ‘one of those’.   Two military drunks require Mary and the bouncers in the early hours.

Magnolia ‘Summer Solstice’ is going over and I have missed the exquisite pink tinge to the opening buds.  Fair mess still to clear up from the fallen beech here and Ross’ fire has scorched the acer.

Rhododendron species in flower at the top of Hovel Cart Road.  I thought at first Rhododendron facetum but it is not when I look it up.  Any offers.  Nice layers below the plant and I find two more in the 1932 species planting above the big quarry.

Several self sown but true to name Rhododendron decorums on the bank above the old Lower Quarry Nursery bed.  Wonderful bark on this species.

Rhus ambigua (ex Crug Farm) is a real oddity.  It’s a climber for one and its flowers do not look even faintly like a rhus to me.  Tom Hudson was puzzled too.  It is certainly very vigorous and doing well on this old yew trunk.  It did set seed last autumn but we missed them.  I suspect a labelling cock up as I can find no reference to this species in ‘New Trees’ nor in the new Hillier’s.

Azalea kaempferi – a variable evergreen azalea species.  Here with slightly double or hose in hose flowers.  I once judged Nigel Holman’s exhibit at the Cornwall Garden Society show as ‘Not According to Schedule’ and he was lapel grabbing cross. Lady Falmouth separated us!

Outside the front door and 20 to 30 years old is Syringa microphylla ‘Superba’.  I suppose one can tolerate fairly miniature lilacs in this case with little scent, when they look like this.