11th October | The Garden Diary

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CONTRIBUTORS:

FJW 1955-2007

CHW 2015-

JCW 1897-1939

CW 1940-1955

2024 – CHW

The spaniel Field Trial today.

The 5 guns.

Simon Trudgeon gives the speech.

The overall winner from near Glastonbury.

All the prize winners.

The winning dog.

Camillia Sasanqua – light pink and Lapageria rosea look good together.

2023 – CHW
A trip to Burncoose.Camellia x williamsii ‘Saint Michael’ in flower.

Camellia sasanqua ‘Rainbow’ looking wonderful!

Camellia sasanqua ‘Narumigata’ about to open.

Nyssa sylvatica turning colour nicely in a tunnel. Why does this seldom happen here in the garden?

Diospyros lotus with an interesting red and yellow combination of colours.

Verbena rigida still looking fresh even in October.

Ampelopsis brevipedunculata ‘Elegans’ with its striking mottled blue berries.

Back here one of our largest Magnolia delavayi has split in half on the Main Ride.

2022 – CHW
To Burncoose and a surprising number of things still in flower or with exceptional autumn tints.Berberis julianae is not a species one normally rates for autumn colour.

Euonymus hamiltonianus ‘Ruby Wine’ living up to its name.

Euonymus planipes at two stages of its colour changes.

Aesculus flava’s autumn performance.

Chitalpa tashkentensis still full of flower.

Franklinia alatamaha with bud and flower.

Lithocarpus lepidocarpus with bronzy secondary new growth.

Sycoparrotia semidecidua with bold yellow tints.

Acacia rhetinodes full flower in a tunnel.

Cestrum nocturnum scenting the greenhouse.

Spiraea japonica ‘Anthony Waterer’ covered in flower.

Viburnum plicatum ‘Mariesii’ with autumn colour and still a few late flowers.

Anemone hupehensis ‘Whirlwind’.

Viburnum tinus covered in berries.

2021 – CHW
A fine flower on Passiflora caerulea.

Better pictures of the flowers on Buddleia forrestii by the garden entrance.

The first flowers on the ancient Camellia sasanqua sprung open last Friday in the overcast but warm weather.

Lapageria rosea ‘Flesh Pink’ just out.

Saw the last of the house martins today in a large moving pack over a field. They soon moved on.

2020 – CHW
An abandoned guinea fowl egg in an old nest in Kennel Close. Hopeless parents!

Final grass cut (third or fourth) for the year in Kennel Close now that the mower has finally been mended.

A large beech tree blew over during the week below the Rookery Nursery beds. Seen worse messes but leave until the spring as it will make a good pheasant flushing point.

More deer nibbling in Kennel Close.

Squirrel damage (all fresh) on a young beech tree.

Stewartia monodelpha displaying wonderful autumn colour in Kennel Close.

Cladastris kentuckea is now a picture!

We have spent some time recently looking at odd (dull) and unidentified small shrubs (Schinus and Forestiera). Here is another which I believe is Melicytus crassifolium. I think Tom Hudson showed a Melicytus in flower at the Cornwall Garden Society show in 2019 (this was Melicytus alpinus). Hillier’s says this New Zealand plant grows to only 4-5ft but it is much taller here with a trunk. No sign of any white berries as yet. Semi evergreen with obovate leaves but I would say the leaves are oblong? This casts doubt on the identification.

I discover another holly growing well above Crinodendron Hedge and just in flower. Some leaves are markedly spiny while others are much more oval or rounded. It is Ilex x altaclarensis ‘Hodginsii’ which makes a good specimen tree for a lawn and is well worth propagating. A male clone with purple stems. Another good find to add to the collection.

Roy Lancaster’s 2019 gift of an Ilex spinigera planted out last year and growing quickly.

Genuinely out of season white flowers on Staphylea holocarpa – white rather than the more common pink form. Something has eaten them a bit.

2019 – CHW
Jamie and the team have burnt up the fallen branch on the Ilex oak opposite the front door.

Magnolia ‘F.J. Williams’ with seed pods on the ground and some still on the tree. An urgent need to gather these and those under the nearby Magnolia ‘Kew Surprise’ which the squirrels have already been at. Although those seedlings may not turn out quite true to the original mother tree they are well worth us growing. Seedlings are rather more affordable for some of our mail order customers than much more expensive grafted plants.

2018 – CHW
A young Rhododendron sutchuenense with plenty of developing seed heads for Asia to gather when they are ripe.

A young Magnolia nitida which struggled in the drought has put out side shoots from its main trunk. I have not seen this before as this magnolia is not one for pruning to reshoot.

2017 – CHW

A trip to below Slip Rail to view the autumn colour.

Cotoneaster frigidus ‘Inchmery’ now has much more riper fruit than I saw a week ago. Asia will need the long handled pruners to gather up enough seed to send to David West. It is faintly apricot in colour now having been yellow earlier.

Cercidiphyllum japonicum nearby is turning colour nicely. Before the 1990 hurricane a UK record tree grew exactly here.

As is the old Acer henryi at the top.

Meanwhile Tetracentron sinense, with its odd leave structure, is not.

Eriobotrya deflexa still has its wonderful reddish-bronze new growth.

And Liriodendron chilense is just starting to turn.

2016 – CHW
The first flowering seen here of Clethra pringleyi and very late in the season it is too. Not remarkably different from other clethra species in all other respects I suggest but nice enough today.

Here is the split in half Magnolia ‘Tropicana’ which I mentioned as a recent wind casualty earlier last week.

2015 – CHWOsmanthus yunnanense now growing into a large shrub. We must cut the old plants back at Georges Hut so they can reshoot. The immature foliage here has spines on the leaves which you do not see on mature plants. Still too immature to flower but will not be long.

Just the odd flower left on Eucryphia lucida. This plant seems to be out much later than the plants at the top of the garden which I photographed ages ago.

1930 – JCW
Lapagerias and cyclamen are good. Neriiflorums quite nice. Several new rhodo’s to flower, also Sargentii and Denudata seedling.

1928 – JCW
Came home from the north, a good season for plants but a dry August to mid Sept, perhaps the best corn and hay harvest known, a bad season for rhodo buds.

1920 – JCW
Came from Scotland this morning. The villages and towns of Cornwall all lack water in many places as never before, but things like evergreen oaks, magnolias and the smaller rhodo’s in well dug and well mulched beds look very well indeed but it is a poor flowering year.

1925 – JCW
Came from Scotland and London last night, many things have done well, a few dead or sulky but on the whole a really good season with more flower bud on the small things than for some time.

1921 – JCW
Came from Scotland after the drought of our time. The ground is very dry now but I don’t see the dead plants I expected to see. N.B it took about 2-3 years to show them.

1917 – JCW
Home from Scotland, 24 species of rhodo’n in flower. it has been very hot and dry and there should be many deaths amongst the shrubs. N.B there were in 1920.

1911 – JCW
Solanums, lapagerias and cyclamen all very good. C paniculata very fine. Many, probably all the big Chinese have set for flowers, and many of them for the first time. Camellia sasanqua in flower and full of promise.