Escallonia bifida covered in flower in a hot spot despite the drought.

More dead scented rhododendrons by the Acer griseum.

Castanopsis sieboldii with fruits starting to form high up.

Quercus laurina.

Lithocarpus harlandii is looking better in the drought than I had feared.

Clethra petelotii in flower.

Secondary flowers on Magnolia ‘Todd’s Forty Niner’.

The first seed clusters just starting to form on a young Lithocarpus hancei.

2025 – CHW
Our Champion Acer rufinerve ‘Hatsuyuki’ is dead. Another snakebark with a short life span but no rot on the stem; just at the base.

Crataegus ambigua with ripe red fruits.

Crataegus jozana with ripening fruits.

Crataegus durobrivei with unripe & green haws.

Magnolia ‘Yakeo’ with its usual good show.

Another drought casualty rhododendron.

2024 – CHW
A summer party at Sithney and a blue flowering bog plant in a pond. I am not in the know on aquatic plants but have seen this growing frequently elsewhere. What I have not seen before is the blue flowers.

An effective combination of Hesperantha ‘Sunrise’ and Hesperantha ‘Snow Maiden’.

A very fine Eucryphia x nymansensis ‘Nymansay’ behind the bar. Sadly the admiration was more for the Pimm’s than this plant.

Hydrangea ‘Ayesha’ and Eucryphia ‘Nymansay’ providing an interesting contrast.

Unusual to see a Primula florindae out alongside Lobelia ‘Hadspen Purple’.

2023 – CHW
It could be November – howling gale and a night of rain.Our best Magnolia sprengeri var. ‘Diva’ with some severe drought die back. Worse even than last year.

A newly planted Brassaiopsis mitis (which was a gift from Raf Lenaerts) has the most extraordinary leaf structure I have even seen. Prickly stem and a flower bud developing. Exciting stuff but I fear this may be a conservatory plant in reality. Its in a very sheltered spot.

Crug Farm’s Brassaiopsis dumicola (KWJ 12217) is next door to it and planted in 2014. We have lost this twice before. An old flower and a new flower head forming. The leaves are nowhere near as intricate.

Drought damage lower down to Persea thunbergii. Yellow leaves but some red new growth. The older original plant in more shade looks fine.

Podocarpus parlatorei making rapid growth below the Engine House.

2022 – CHW

The aptly named Carpinus heterophyllus ‘Quercifolia’.

Ailanthus altissima ‘Purple Dragon’.

No flowers yet on Catalpa setchuenensis.

Sorbus gongashanice covered in seed heads.

Crataegus schraderiana virtually leafless because of the drought or deer with plenty of berries setting. Secondary new growth trying to come through.

Populus deltoides ‘Purple Tower’ with green leaved reversion irregularly along the branches. I cut the reversions out only last year but to no avail.

Acer campbellii var. fancgipanense (BSWJ 82700) laden with seed.

Sorbus wilsoniana with its best performance yet.

First flower on a young Magnolia grandiflora ‘Kay Parris’.

Hoheria sexstylosa ‘Snow White’ now full out.

Diospyros cathayensis growing away well and enjoying the heat.

2021 – CHW
Colin French, author of the amazing pictorial book ‘A Flora of Cornwall’ (547 pages) has been here for the second phase of his wildflower recording work on the farm. This work updates a similar survey 10 or more years ago and will hopefully, in its end report, show a greater diversity of flora than previously as a result of our extensive, low input, low stocking rate farming policy.We have a look at the flora in one or two garden areas which have recently been cleared of trees, roots and laurel hedges and then replanted. Colin’s view is that the plants which have materialised from disturbed soil where their seeds have been dormant for perhaps 60 to 80 years are woodland species and not meadow species. One of the areas we looked at may have been a pasture until circa 1910. The flora which were found earlier in the year in Tin Garden were much more in keeping with what one would have expected in a meadow hedgerow.On the banks outside the front door we revisited the knapweeds. There are two recognised species of common knapweed, Centaurea, and the difference is not the spread or the size of the floret rays but in the covering of the eventual seed cluster below the flower itself. Centaurea nigra has dark black/brown scales with some green showing between them. Centaurea debeauxii has longer brownish heirs on much greener scales. Colin has found C. nigra on the bank here as well as a rare new Cornish species, C. nigra ss, which has only shown up a few times mainly in west Cornwall (C. nigra ss has even darker and tighter black scales with no sign of any green between them). Today, with flowering nearly over, we sadly do not find any C. nigra ss. I fear the difference leaves a non-botanist rather puzzled but then so do many similar rhododendron species.

C. nigra with campion (Silene dioica) which is unusual at this time of the year in an uncut bank.

Colin points out good clumps of the rather minute Cornish moneywort (Sibthorpia europaea) on the edge of the mound outside the back yard. Highly localised and relatively infrequent is the description in Colin’s book. ‘One never sees the flower’ says Colin and I can well see why!

This all goes to show how our separate horticultural/botanical knowledge is so different in two very associated spheres. If asked I might have said that I perhaps knew how to identify more wildflowers than most but, set against Colin’s lifetime of knowledge in this sphere, I feel like a five year old child in my ignorance. At least I got a smile when referring to fungi which thankfully neither of us have a clue about.