Cerinthe major var. purpurascens.

Echium fastuosum (E. candicans) more or less over.

Echium fastuosum and Abutilon suntense.

Musa basjoo with bananas forming.

Views of the walled garden.

A superb plant in full flower of Legrandia concinna.

A bed of Sweet William.

Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula’ and Koelreuteria paniculata.

A Strelitzia reginae in flower in the greenhouse.

The speeches.

2025 – CHW
Heavy rain overnight and a drizzly day which is good news for the nursery where I met APHA (Plant Health) today.Anemone ‘White Swan’ much earlier into flower than expected.

Callicarpa bodinieri ‘Profusion’ also very early to be out.

Bergenia ‘Morgenröte’ also out absurdly early.

Desmodium elegans out on time but not that impressive.

Clematis heracleifolia ‘Cote d’Azur’ flowering better than I have even seen in the climber tunnel. Not that it is a climber!

Small plants of Lithocarpus glaber in flower in one of the tunnels. Perhaps a bad sign for these plants?

Cornus pumila with flowers which I had not seen before. This forms a mounded bush of up to 6 feet in height eventually.

Just one flower on Philadelphus ‘Petite Perfume White’. The Chelsea Plants of the Year have just arrived but only one flower to be seen on the small plants.

Viburnum x hillieri ‘Winton’ full out in the nursery as it is at Caerhays.

Passiflora ‘Damsel’s Delight’ not that different from P. caerulea but nice enough.

Azalea ‘Michael Hill’ growing on the edge of the Burncoose Nurseries car park – nearest the tunnel entrance. At cutting time we can never remember which is which.

Azalea ‘Alexandrer’ also in the car park – top centre. Both these are dwarf growing x nakaharae hybrids.

2024 – CHW
The preparations of the Caerhays Charity Fete are well in hand for tomorrow.

Then to the church to see the 2024 Flower Festival with the grandchildren. The entrance adorned with Cornus ‘Satomi’. All sponsored by Burncoose Nurseries. The theme is Cornish industries. The scent overwhelming.

A National Trust exhibit with silk/ plastic flowers.

A tractor – farming.

Mining tin and lithium in Cornwall.

Cornwall Seaweed Company.

Fishing.

Cornish Cream.

Cornish Apple Growing.

China Clay.

Rhodda’s Cornish Cream.

The pulpit crammed with roses.

Cornish slate – Delabole.

Cornish granite – Lantoom.

Cornish pasty.

St. Ewe free range eggs – Caroline George.

Traditional stained glass.

Sticker Woman’s Institute – Destination Wedding.

Beside the seaside.

Tregothnan Tea and more Cornus ‘Satomi’.

Lost Garden of Heligan.

Flowers from Farm artisan.

2023 – CHW

Aesculus californica is suddenly full out too in the heat. A week ago nothing.

The Slip Rail Cornus kousa ‘Satomi’ showing how the lower shaded bracts do not turn pink.

Podocarpus henkelii and Aesculus wilsonii.

A less hidden than usual show of flowers on Styrax japonicus ‘Pendulus’.

A very rare Mexican Clethra keels over in the drought.

All the plants returned to Burncoose now that the gardens are shut for another year.

2022 – CHW

Styrax hookeri has not got many flowers this year.

Styrax obassia also hides its panicles of flowers under the canopy of foliage.

Calycanthus ‘Aphrodite’ flowering well in Tin Garden.

Deutzia monbeigii now producing a good show. More flowers than leaves on this smallish shrub and the leaves are tiny and inverted.

Philadelphus pekinensii is another species swift to form a good clump. Here perhaps in too much shade for best flowering but the three four year old plants are already almost grown together.

Catalpa duclouxii in full flower at 20ft. Our old plant is dead but these root suckers have battled to the light.

Chionanthus virginicus just coming out. It needs more sun to flower better as the one at Burncoose does. Slow growing and only about 10ft tall after 30 years here.

Swelling flower buds (and some just out high up) on Hydrangea seemanii.

2021 – CHW
Boris has decided to extend what is left of the lockdown regulations to 19th July. We were to have been ‘free’ on 21st June. I cannot see major consequences for the businesses here as the holiday season is upon us. The gardens shut for the year on Sunday with £1,956 raised from gardens entry and car parking for Cornwall Hospice Care.A pot full of Salvia ‘Love and Wishes’ outside the front door which replaced the now planted out Daphne bholua ‘Mary Rose’. Only eight weeks to get this show.

Pheas painting one of the front gates. The other side misses the sun and only needed a touch up.

White wisteria in a yew tree in the Rookery as seen from the lawn.

Our very old Acer maximowiczianum (Acer nikoense) is covered in winged seed heads. I suspect this is its last ‘hurrah’ before passing out.

The white wisteria from the Rookery Path side.

Susyn Andrews thinks that this ancient gaultheria on Rookery Path opposite the Rhododendron falconeri is Gaultheria hookeri (Vaccinum wardii).

Rhododendron ‘Tally Hoo Group’ is nearly over.