A huge fir branch blocks the path at Slip Rail. We passed under this at 4.30 yesterday before it fell.

Lindera triloba seems not to open up properly in flower. Flowers before the leaves.

Lindera lancei (BSWJ 1118) flowering here for the first time after planting last autumn. Leaves with the flowers.

Magnolia ‘Sprite Rite’ one of the few to escape from the deluge.

Prunus ‘Beni-yutaka’ nearly out.

A young Magnolia ‘Wim Rutten’ with 4 flowers.

Magnolia salicifolia ‘Rosea’ has a pink stripe but is not really pink. Impossible to photograph well as its now too tall and the flowers are too far away.

Typical rain damage on rhododendron flowers that were only just new out.

2023 – CHW
The registration of Camellia x williamsii ‘Mary Pickthorn’ has now been accepted onto the International Camellia Register as attached. Available for sale from Burncoose in 2024.Robert Vernon of Bluebell Nurseries has given us a gift of this marvellous double white flowered form of Prunus spinosa ‘Plena’. He writes one of the nicest thank you letters that C & B have ever received. Competitors but great and longstanding friends – rather ‘old school’ if I am being honest which is such a rarity in the new woke today!

Then a review of the newer magnolias flowering here today. A long and exciting list!

Magnolia ‘Watermelon’ in Penvergate. Very good at first flowering. (M. ‘Caerhays Belle’ x M. ‘Genie’).

Magnolia ‘Scented Gem’ in Penvergate (ex Kevin Hughes). Not so different to M. ‘Shirley’s Perfume or M. Rebecca’s Perfume’ in colour or scent? Not in MSI Register?

Magnolia ‘Sybille’ in Penvergate. (M. ‘White Giant’ x M. Leda).

The view from the top of 40 acres (as we saw last year but less frosted magnolias this time).

Magnolia ‘Emperor’ in 40 acres. This is an exceptional new variety of great merit. (M. ‘Felix Jury’ x M. Genie).v

Magnolia ‘Delicatissima’ (Gresham Hybrid).

Magnolia ‘Cup Cake’.

Magnolia ‘Big Dude’.

Magnolia liliiflora ‘Holland Red’.

Magnolia ‘Frank Gladney’.

Magnolia ‘Crimson Stipple’.

Magnolia ‘Anya’ (label says ‘Anja’ but ‘Anya’ is correct) first time flowering in 40 acres (M. ‘Iolanthe’ x M. ‘Vulcan’).

Magnolia ‘Brombeer’ flowering for the first time. Spelling on label is suspect. Kennel Close.

Prunus x persica ‘Spring Glow’ – planted a year ago.

Magnolia ‘Anne Leitner’ (M. ‘Black Tulip’ x M. ‘J.C. Williams’).

Magnolia denudata ‘Double Diamond’ – A better plant at Burncoose called M. denudata ‘Dubbel’.

Magnolia ‘Black Tulip’ x M. ‘Pickard’s Ruby’.

Magnolia ‘Gold Finch’.

Magnolia ‘Spring Rite’.

Magnolia ‘Plum Pudding’ – the two plants we have now are different in colour (but not shape). Not an unusual situation with imported magnolias from New Zealand.

Magnolia ‘Sweet Sixteen’ – a new young plant doing better than our much older one which had to be pruned after the 2018 ‘Beast from the East’.

Magnolia ‘Tinkerbelle’ – the jury is out on this one. I have seen it better in the nursery.

Magnolia ‘Black Tulip’ x M. liliiflora ‘Holland Red’.

Magnolia ‘Antje Zandee’ – outstanding.

Magnolia ‘Joker’ – good but not that good so far in the second year of flowering.

Magnolia ‘Black Tulip’ x M. Serene’.

Magnolia ‘Crystal Chalice’.

Magnolia cylindrica x M. ‘Darjeeling’.

Magnolia sinostellata – still going after having nearly died in the drought.

Magnolia ‘Atlas’ x M.‘Vulcan’.

Magnolia ‘Aphrodite’ (M. ‘Black Tulip’ x M. ‘Deep Purple Dream’ now named). When you have grown an unnamed cross for several years it is most confusing when it subsequently gets a registered name. Catch up time but one only has to think about it in the brief period when it is out with scores of other crosses and novelties.

Magnolia ‘Burgundy Star’ – perhaps the best colour seen today but M. ‘Burgundy Spire’ looks better even than this as a new introduction which has not flowered here yet.

2022 – CHW

A visit to Tregrehan with the RHS Fellows on the warmest day of the year so far.

Debregesia longifolia in flower. A most peculiar shrub.

Corylopsis in the walled garden but which one? Corylopsis spicata?

Skimmia laureola with berries and flower at the same time.

Daphne bholua ‘Mary Rose’ in a freestanding and exposed position.

The bark on the trunk of Picrasma quassiodes. We have recently planted this tree here.

Podocarpus totara – a record tree.

Betula ermanii ‘Mt Hokkoda Honshia’ with attractive bark.

Cupressus lusitanica – another new species to me and dullish!

Corokia macrocarpa

Magnolia maudiae var. platypetala flowering well.

Camellia tsai laden down with flower in full shade.

Tom has given us an offshoot of this tender and unidentified species of Hedychium.

Bartlettiana sordida in bud and flower.

2021 – CHW
Yellow flowered Clivia miniata at the nursery sales point. The first time we have ever stocked a yellow form.

Magnolia and Podocarpus make an excellent contrast and wonderful show below the walled garden.

A wonderful Magnolia ‘Shirraz’ in the old Gilly farmyard. About 20 years old.

I stopped on the way back from Burncoose to photograph this wonderful roadside combination of Magnolia stellata and Forsythia x intermedia ‘Lynwood’ in Perranwell.

Rhododendron ‘Loch Awe’ just coming out. The colour changes as you can see.

First single flower on Magnolia ‘Black Tulip’ x Magnolia ‘Caerhays Surprise’ – impressive even if a bit damaged!

Camellia reticulata ‘Lovely Lady’ flowering properly 18 months on from planting.

Camellia reticulata ‘Larry Piet’ likewise. Two good new ones for Asia to propagate.

As is Camellia ‘Nuccio’s Jewel’ of which we have three decent plants above the greenhouse. Some earlier frost damage.

The white form of Camellia reticulata which has been out for ages next to a decent young ‘Captain Rawes’.

Camellia reticulata ‘Valentine Day’ on Rookery Path is an exceptionally good variety too.

A gorgeous flower on another Magnolia campbellii alba seedling in the evening light.

2020 – CHW
So we rattle around the castle in glorious isolation. No sound of cars or people and just the cock pheasants purring as they fight over the hens. Down now to eight staff who have not been furloughed and the police are in evidence. They visited Porthluney Beach which has both car parks locked but there were still a few cars and walkers parked in the road doing their perfectly legitimate exercise. The police visited Mays and Griggs agricultural stores who were apparently only selling dog food and told them to shut. The Horticultural Trades Association advises that garden centres must shut BUT “can continue home deliveries and online ordering”. This is something of a reprieve for Burncoose Nurseries who are continuing to pack and fulfil the 143 plant orders received online yesterday. The travel to work to keep the economy going if you cannot work from home advice was always going to be hard to interpret in reality on the ground. Hopefully when things settle into the new routine ‘they’ will leave us alone with our mail orders.Although KPK has closed in a panic many large building sites are staying open with social distancing etc. I fear we were too hasty – and unfair to the subcontractors. How can you furlough your staff with individual letters that they need to sign if someone is not in an office sorting it out. March wages are paid today across the estate businesses – £90k. Come late April we will mainly be paying 80% of this and will hope that the government can and does pay us on the same date. Will they? Not unless a lot of time is spent in offices applying online with every individual’s PAYE records to hand. Could our accounts team work from home? Possibly but in the mad rush to get home cloud connections Richard’s kit does not yet work and he is still waiting for his new laptop computer ordered a while ago. Bugger the guidelines – apply common sense and distancing to survive!Even the dogs are puzzled and restless at the new people and dog free regime. They know it is spring and it is not just the cock pheasants feeling randy.Magnolia x loebneri ‘Mags Pirouette’ on the drive. Is this better than Magnolia x loebneri ‘Powder Puff’ which grows in Forty Acres? I will go and see tomorrow but there is not much in it. Both very good.

Despite being smashed down to a 6ft stump two and a half years ago this Magnolia denudata ‘Forrest’s Pink’ has had plenty of flowers on the drive.

The two record Magnolia x veitchii ‘Peter Veitch’ full out today. I do a vlog of this for the Caerhays website with film also of Magnolia ‘Star Wars’ and a young Magnolia doltsopa. The makeover was ‘what you are missing today’. Karol kept the requisite 2m away so ‘social distancing’ was maintained during filming.

The pure white single Camellia x williamsii ‘Francis Hanger’.

The unnamed near white with a hint of pink Camellia x williamsii bred by my father which grows not far from ‘Francis Hanger’. It is well worth naming if we have not already?

First flowers on Rhododendron ‘Elizabeth’ on the bank at the Four in Hand.

Buddleia crispa var. farreri which I could not name the other day is still out with no leaves. Asia had kindly given it a new label. Hillier’s says it flowers in April but it has already been out here for a month and is now going over. The plant is very quick growing and already 4-5ft tall with a similar spread in just a few (three?) years.

A very fine Camellia ‘Drama Girl’ on the drive is just about full out. Ten to twelve feet tall with a similar spread after circa 25 years and in a windy situation.

As expected this huge clump of white Rhododendron arboreum is 25% dead and the rest will succumb to old age soon.

Another clump nearby is fine and flowering away. Did Asia collect seed of this last year I wonder? Probably still time to find seeds in last year’s seed heads if she did not.

First single flower on Magnolia ‘Avocet’ is quite nicely imbued with pink but still another dullish white really. This is a 2003 hybrid between Magnolia x veitchii ‘Isca’ and Magnolia x soulangeana so it should become a huge tree eventually. One for Burncoose to propagate and stock in due course.

Amomyrtus luma (formerly Myrtus lechleriana) is coming out as a 25ft tall tree above Orchid House Nursery.

Magnolia ‘Phelan Bright’ is listed as a Gresham hybrid but I seem to remember Jim Gardiner telling me that there was more to it than this. It perhaps looks more like a fairly decent Magnolia campbellii ‘Alba Group’ to me and certainly has that growth habit.

Magnolia pseudokobus ‘Kubushi-modoki’ is just opening and the flowers will open out flat which is the great attribute of this Japanese magnolia. So far it does not look to be going to grow too big. A ‘must’ for a smaller garden.

Staphylea holocarpa ‘Rosea’ has sprung out in the sunshine this week. Firmly in bud last Sunday.

New fronds on a tree fern are already 4ft or more long.

This is a Magnolia x veitchii seedling from the Cholipo Arboretum in South Korea. It is in an imposing place and should develop into a huge and very visible tree.

Magnolia ‘Sweet Merlot’ is just out nearby and developing into a fine tree visible from the castle lawn.

2019 – CHW
A trip to the greenhouses to see what new is out.The first full out patch of bluebells in the sun and not even April yet!

A young Magnolia ‘Cup Cake’ with its first two flowers in the frame. Nothing startling really.

Magnolia ‘Black Velvet’ is a surprising white with, I admit, a blackish velvety stem. Wrongly named? No idea as it is entirely new to me and not in any reference book.

Liquidambar styraciflua ‘Silver King’ was a gift from Windsor Great Park and John Anderson. No doubt it will get more silvery.

Rhododendron arboreum (pink form) by the greenhouses in a huge mature clump.

Attractive new growth on Salix moupinense.

A few lower flowers on Magnolia x veitchii ‘Isca’, the white form. The tree is so tall that one seldom gets close to a flower. The other tree is more white in flower than this one.

2018 – CHW
A garden tour in the evening with Evelyn Boscawen and Jonathon Jones. Jonathon literally just back from Canada and off the plane with no coat. Raining and cold.Stachyurus praecox ‘Joy Forever’. S. praecox has shorter and chubbier flower tassels than Stachyurus chinensis. Flowering properly here for the first time. The leaves are yellow variegated.

Magnolia sprengeri ‘Diva’ was, thankfully, having a year off from flowering this year but a couple of solitary buds are about to open and appear undamaged.

Prunus ‘Collingwood Ingram’ flowering for the first time here. A seedling of Prunus kursar but with much darker flowers. Raised in Belgium in 1979 and named in honour of Captain Collingwood Ingram who was the introducer of many Japanese cherries to UK cultivation.

Rhododendron gongshanense flowering for the first time that I have noticed here anyway. The pocket guide to rhodo species has no picture of a flower but says that the flowers are red? Not listed in Hillier’s. A recent introduction by the Cox family. The original label reads Rhododendron gongashanense which is presumably our spelling error or is this another species? The leaves look correct as far as the pocket guide goes. Another welcome new addition to the species collection.

Camellia x williamsii ‘Ladys Maid’ has attractive delicate flowers that hang down from its dense foliage. USA origin but well worth its place here. Makes a robust hedge/windbreak.

Two young plants of Camellia reticulata ‘Captain Rawes’ are nicely out now as our three old plants are nearly dead below The Pound. Stripped of most leaves in the wind I doubt they will now recover.

Rhododendron praestans just emerging on Sinogrande Walk. The colour fades to creamy white and becomes less exciting. Another plant on Rookery Path which is not showing yet.

2017 – CHW
Another sunny day. Only the third here for the whole month when I think about it.Rhododendron ‘Praecox’ is flowering much more profusely than usual and a very good form.

The Magnolia dawsoniana seedling outside the front arch is at its best.

Magnolia x loebneri ‘Wildcat’. Although a much smaller plant than the ‘Powder Puff’ we saw yesterday is the flower really that different? Just as nice but perhaps the flowers do not open out quite as much and perhaps not quite so many tepals?

Rhododendron canadense (dark form) just coming out. We planted three Rhododendron cumberlandense (another US species) alongside it last week.

The vile racist discrimination against Spanish bluebells is misplaced as I have said often before.
Here are a few half castes nearby which are nice enough too.

This supposedly dwarf growing forsythia on the lawn was given to me to treasure and propagate by a very elderly gardener who had selected it from a batch of seedlings which he had grown as a forsythia breeder. It was at least 30 years ago and it is very dwarfish as you can see although whether it is indeed worth a name is anyone’s guess? We should propagate anyway. I must check the planting records for more information on the grower.