Podocarps ripening up on Podocarpus henkelii.

Schefflera delavayi just gets better and better. When can we grow more of these from seed?!

Viburnum wrightii with flowers and berries.

A Mahonia hybrid involving Mahonia huiliensis and M. fargesii with its first flower opening.

I go to have a look at Camellia x williamsii ‘November Pink’ and, extraordinarily, there is a rogue flower open in early October.

2023 – CHW
The final grass cut in Kennel Close.

Jaimie has spotted the first flowers out on the second of the ancient white Camellia sasanquas. He also took some better pictures of the dark pink one. So 3 of the 5 ancient sasanquas have flowered in September and the fourth in the first days of October. The fifth is always a little later.

The first time we have ever flowered the South African Halleria lucida outside at Caerhays. Not a great show as yet but highly unusual. No flowers yet coming directly from the trunk as they can do. Seeds forming as well.

One forgets quite how large the seed heads are on Camellia reticulata.

Hedychium maximum (BSWJ 8261a) just coming out. A huge flower spike and very late into the Hedychium season.

2022 – CHW
Now that I have in the garden library the very excellent ‘New Zealand Native Trees’ by Dawson and Lucas, with a host of good pictures, I can have another look at our Prumnopitys plants.This is one of our Prumnopitys taxifolia’s. It looks largely dead today and more of a shrub than a coniferors tree. This is however only its (lengthy) juvenile stage and, instead of drooping twiglets at the top of the plant as now, it will eventually develop a leading trunk and grow into a very long lined evergreen tree.

This tree had been acquired as Prumnopitys taxifolia and is still labelled as such. It is clearly not Prumnopitys andina (Podocarpus andinus) from South America nor is it Prumnopitys ferruginea, the other New Zealand species of Prumnopitys, according to the reference books. It is clearly a Podocarpus and very probably Podocarpus acutifolius. In its juvenile form it is not an exact match for the elderly P. acutifolius in the Auklandii Garden in its current leaf form but the way that that bark is peeling at the base on this young tree does match our mature plant.

So, of the three species of Prumnopitys we may well have only one. This explains my confusion at a recent visit to Tregrehan and looking at their two New Zealand species; P. taxifolia and P. ferruginea. Neither are listed as being included in our National Collection of Podocarpaceae.

We will eventually have to cut back the plants beside these two trees to give them room to become trees which was not that obvious when we planted them 15 years ago. There is another Prumnopitys taxifolia above Hovel Cart Road with more room at the end of the Podocarpus windbreak here.

2021 – CHW
A trip to Tregrehan where I made the cardinal sin of confusing Camellia oleifera with Camellia taliensis as I have in this diary for many years. My father before me too. Our elderly plants are C. taliensis and not C. oleifera and hence my surprise at the appearance of Tom’s C. oleifera. Just one of those gardening things! I remain an amateur with professionals like Tom!

Asia and I went to collect another (second) set of camellia species cuttings to go with those collected in October 2018. A full list of the cuttings taken can be seen at the end of this entry. From the October 2018 cuttings we have grown on about a dozen new species to Caerhays.

Seed heads forming on Camellia tuberculata.

Flowers on Magnolia ‘Nimbus’ (Magnolia obovata from Japan crossed with Magnolia virginiana from USA). Gorgeous scent. I think we have this somewhere but I never expected flowers in October. Well worth growing!

Lapageria rosea growing up a Magnolia campbellii – a quite superb mix and a very dark red form of L. rosea.

Huge fruits on Camellia xylocarpa.

Winged fruits on Euonymus clivicola (which Tom had thought was Euonymus cornutus before being put right).

Magnolia megaphylla from Vietnam – very tender! Tom kindly gave us a rooted cutting. Gorgeous golden indumentum on the young stems and huge old leaves. Tom grew this in the greenhouse but has now planted it out at circa 12ft tall a year or so ago in full shade and shelter.

Camellia hongkongensis – very tender with blackish new growth and blueish undersides to the new leaves.

The true Camellia granthamiana. Our Caerhays (white) and Burncoose (pink) plants are clearly not the true species with huge white egg shaped flowers. Tom’s original plant is in his greenhouses.

Lithocarpus brevicaudatus – we will try cuttings (a gift from Thomas Methuen-Campbell to Tom originally and growing well).

Castanopsis eyrie – huge older leaves before the new growth (also from seed via Thomas Methuen-Campbell).

Litsea moupinense – another very vigorous new species.

Roedeer nibbling of the fresh new growth of a large clump of Rhododendron yeufengense.

Clerodendron oxyphyllum nearly in flower. Disgusting scent to the leaves when crushed.

The true Camellia oleifera.

Schefflera macrophylla glowing in the evening sun. Flowers not yet quite out. 20-25ft tall plants.

Camellia minor with seed heads (this one not listed in the Chinese species book).

I see that the summer flowering Camellia azalea hybrid, ‘1001 Summer Nights Jasmine’, is available after its Chelsea debut for £49.99 from Thompson & Morgan. Tom and I agree we will not be rushing to get one.

Camellia list:
C. tuberculosa
C. xylocarpa
C. japonica (from Korea – BSWJ 5906)
C. parvilimba
C. hongkongensis
C. granthamiana
C. crapnelliana
C. flaviolatus
C. chengii
C. cordifolia
C. tunganii
C. sinensis assamica
C. strictoclada (C. strictocarpa?)
C. oleifera – East China
C. vietnamensis
C. minor
C. bailingschanica (two forms with different coloured flowers)

2020 – CHW
A fine secondary flowering as usual on Rhododendron ‘Yellow Hammer’.

Hoheria populnea flowering well but very high up on the tree.

We are back to the two clumps of two ilex which are at least or around 100 years old and for which the identification is still uncertain. They are so tall that we need binoculars to see if there are any green berries. I suspect they are Ilex hookeri or Ilex dipyrena. The juvenile foliage is described as very spiny on I. dipyrena but of course there is not any. These pictures may again help with a final certain identification. It may be that the berries are what will complete the identification and Jaimie will try to cut a twig which may have berries with the long handled pruners. In the 1966 tree measuring schedule these ilex are listed as Ilex insignis and the identical two have Forrest numbers 25424 and 25362. I. insignis is no longer a recognised specie name.

The tender Callicarpa psilocalyx is about to flower. I do not think I have seen this before.

Callicarpa dichotoma also nearly out.

Nice autumn colour developing on Cercis chinensis ‘Avondale’ in the Isla Rose Plantation.

I attach a list of the ilex species collected by George Forrest on various expeditions to China derived from my father’s notes. Remembering that JCW asked Forrest to find him ‘nice evergreens’ instead of (just) rhododendrons in the early 1920s it is likely that we still have original Forrest plants here of Ilex dipyrena, Ilex bioritsensis (Ilex pernyi var. veitchii or perhaps I. pernyi to Forrest) and Ilex kingiana (although Forrest does not use this name on his earlier trips). Those species which have died out here over the years but which were probably original Forrest introductions include Ilex corallina* (measured here in 1960s), Ilex cytura, Ilex yunnanensis*, Ilex fargesii and Ilex georgei (which I replaced but that too has died). (* = replaced more recently)

The name changes over the last hundred years since Forrest’s time make this the sort of complex botanical puzzle which I simply do not have the time (or botanical knowledge) to unravel further.

2019 – CHW
Outside Edwina’s house in the village is a Cotoneaster bullatus producing a fine show of berries.

Ross has felled the other half of the youngish beech tree which split in half last Sunday. Not too much mess!

The last elderly 120 year old beech tree has also been felled in the new clearance by Higher Quarry Nursery. The trunk was fairly rotten as you can see.

The tree stump of the young beech (70 or so years old) was however not rotten at all.

2018 – CHW
Asia found seeds on one of our four young 10 year old Cephalotaxus fortunei. This proves that we have one female plant and probably three male ones. Certainly we noticed that the flowers were rather different on what we then thought were male as opposed to female plants. The seed capsules themselves do not look like the date plum, which is the common name for Cephalotaxus, but when you strip out the seed itself it certainly does look like a ‘date plum’.

As smallish slow worm found in the garden.

2017 – CHW
The new sales point and shop is rising up from the ground.

Lithocarpus pachyphyllus has huge seeds again this year.