The huge trunk of the Champion Lithocarpus pachyphyllus (a Stone Oak).

The male flowers of Lithocarpus pachyphyllus dying off having fertilised the female flowers which are just starting to develop into seed clusters in the first year.

A year on the inflorescences or seed clusters have developed and contain growing acorns by they are not yet ripe and will not be until October-November when they will be even larger.

Erigeron karvinskianus dead from drought on a wall.

Hydrangeas literally burning in the heat.

Nearly dead.

2025 – CHW
Clearance of brambles and a cut back of the azaleas on Hovel Cart Road.

More ‘Chicken-in-the-Woods’.

A day of drizzle but also time to water the young rhododendrons in the Rookery.

Viburnum setigerum.

Another Clethra monostachya nearly over.

Another Clethra petelotii (FMWJ 13401).

Rhododendron ‘Polar Bear’ on Hovel Cart Road.

2024 – CHW
Another Camellia, cut back, dug up and moved in March, is reestablishing well after this wet summer.

Magnolia cylindrica ‘Lv Xing’ (previously, but incorrectly, known as M. ‘Sunrise’) with a fine showing of secondary flowers which are much the same colour with the same stripes up the sides of the tepals as in March.

Aronia arbutifolia ‘Brilliant’ laden with nearly ripe berries.

I have nearly missed the flowers on Catalpa ovata in a pot beside the greenhouse.

Fruits on a plant of Crataegus mexicana f. stipulacea in a pot.

Mahonia ‘Meteor’ with its first flowers in the frames.

Seed grown Nageia nagi (Podocarpus nagi) coming on well but slow to root out in pots.

Magnolia guangdongensis is still in a pot in the greenhouse. Not so much rust coloured indumentum under the newer leaves.

Nearly ripe seeds on Sorbus rosea which is ready to plant out in the autumn.

A fine lot of young Wilson 50 azaleas in 17 varieties to revitalise our old collection here. All a generous gift from Polly Cooke.

2023 – CHW
Fruits on Photinia villosa just starting to turn orange.

A well gnawed old lead label for Pittosporum daphniphyllum. Why do squirrels like these original lead labels so much? Few survived after the arrival of greys here in the 1960’s.

Our plant of the decade is taking off – Viburnum plicatum ‘Kilimanjaro Sunrise’.

Aesculus parviflora is said to be a suckering shrub but the clump of 3 are much as I planted them in 1991 and very little sign of any root suckers. The same is true of other clumps here and at Burncoose.

Tetrapanax papyrifer ‘Rex’ getting going after a couple of previous failures near George’s Hut.

Podocarpus matudae covered in still green podocarps.

Afrocarpus falcatus (Podocarpus falcatus) has a very dense habit.

This Magnolia campbellii ‘Copeland Court’ was cut back by the Beast from the East in 2018. It recovered well but is now flowering in the autumn out of season which does not bode well. Huge swollen buds and one rather pathetic flower.

2022 – CHW
Crinum powellii full out by the playhouse.

Tertiary small flowers on the adjacent Wisteria.

Hydrangea aspera ‘Hot Chocolate’ (one dead, one will be dead shortly and the third struggling) is in too hot a position. We need more shade to grow this beautiful variety properly.

Just about missed the first flowers of Desmodium elegans. Planted this spring.

Pinus wallichiana is now getting established and starting to put on decent growth. A Chelsea stock plant put out before lockdown.

Hibiscus syriacus ‘Blue Bird’ nicely out in the nursery where I am for the annual garden tree survey.

Cautleya spicata ‘Robusta’ just out in flower. Not the most exciting ‘Ginger’ I have ever seen.

Marsdenia oreophila out in flower in one of the glasshouses.

The unusual double flowered form of Eucryphia glutinosa by the Burncoose pond was nearly over.

A very fine clump of Hydrangea aspera Villosa Group by the lawn at Burncoose. Nicely shaded here and prospering where ‘Hot Chocolate’ was not.

Aesculus parviflora well out too.

2021 – CHW
Hoheria ‘Borde Hill’ also hides its flowers away in its foliage.

A young Magnolia caveana with excellent new growth.

Quercus insignis is finally getting going after a wet summer. Still some dieback from last winter evident here and there.

I see in ‘New Trees’ that the original Meliosma pungens (Meliosma simplicifolia subsp. pungens) which had once existed at Caerhays has ‘disappeared’. Well it has not actually and, now in more light after tree removal, is actually redeveloping well from earlier dieback.

Marvellous new growth on Ilex dimorphophylla.

Odd how the pure white Camellia reticulata holds its four month passed flowers on the twigs.

Superb and extensive secondary new growth on Magnolia zenii.

Magnolia ‘Todd’s Fortyniner’ now properly out in flower and covered.