Should we shut the gardens to the public? I do not quite rate the wind as strong enough and once in the top of the garden it is fine. Lizzy has been and checked.Then off to Trewidden to celebrate Elizabeth Bolitho’s 90th birthday. Trewidden was lived in by my great aunt Mary after 1955 when Uncle Charles died. Today it is owned by Alverne Bolitho. Too filthy to venture into the garden after the drinks party which was very jolly. Sir John Nott, my former boss/chairman at Lazards, told me he was unable to remember people’s names but could remember mine!

Elizabeth had worked at Caerhays from 1952 and had met and married Major Simon Bolitho shortly afterwards. Edward Bolitho made an excellent speech.

We look at the unnamed Magnolia accuminata ‘Fertile Myrtle’ x Magnolia sprengeri ‘Diva’, now in full flower, which we grew from seed from the Magnolia Society International hybrids seed list.  The Magnolia Society International have asked us to name it so I try it out on the tour party.  One suggests ‘Fruit Salad’ which is not bad (I said 8/10) but surely not a descriptive name for a magnolia really!  Perhaps someone reading my scribblings here can do better?  ‘After a bad night on the piss’ or ‘Multi-coloured yawn’ would of course be equally inappropriate!

The rhododendron season is gathering pace and the best things in the garden are no longer magnolias, sadly.Rhododendron irroratum ‘Polkadot’ behind Georges Hut (five plants put out last year) are superb.  Rhododendron irroratum (with less spots) is still a harbinger of spring at Burncoose by the garden crossroads but completely over three weeks ago.  These plants came from Millais Nurseries so I must ask David Millais how he or his father came to name this special form of irroratum?  It is presumably not a hybrid so possibly wild collected in China?

Rhododendron bahuiniflorum is a little known species but its yellow flowers are better than Rhododendron lutescens.  If there is ever time (!) this would be the species to cross with something with even more yellow flowers, possibly Rhododendron concatenans or Rhododendron cinnabarinum?  Is it lepidote or elepidote – need to check.

Jim Gardiner puts me firmly right in an email on Magnolia ‘Raspberry Fun’ which I got so excited about last week and said I would look up.  As he pointed out it is clearly listed in the new Hillier’s as a x loebneri ‘Leonard Messel’ seedling raised in Korea at the Chollipo Arboretum who generously send us their seed list every year and then the seeds too.  Jim must think I am a twit but there we are and, who cares, it was bloody good when first out although, today, it has faded and is merely a bit of a tired but improved Leonard Messel.

Non gardeners love a puzzle and there is no better example of ‘sporting’ in azaleas than the clump of Azalea ‘Palestrina’ under the main Magnolia campbellii.  Palestrina often produces a branch with mauve flowers rather than the predominant normal white.  A couple of plants here have not only mauve flowered branches but also branches with white rimmed light reddish flowers.  Sporting is a phenomenon presumably showing weakness in the genetic makeup of the hybrid so that it reverts to its parents or siblings. Good fun!  Whoever saw a Norwegian with a brown arm?

Better mention Rhododendron ‘Mrs J C Williams’ which still survives as an entry in the new Hillier’s.  An RHS award in 1960 but rather passé today in terms of colour and impact but not hardiness.  My great grandmother died well before my great grandfather so I must look up the parentage of this old Caerhays hybrid and ask Asia, our new Polish propagator from Poznan, to take cuttings in July.

Tomorrow we have a  visitation  from Tregullow  and  Trematon  near  Saltash  on  Grand National day.  Lizzie may be going to her last hunt meet – certainly on old Josh – but I think we will interest the non horsers with a look at Staphylea during our tour.  The  Staphylea holocarpa ‘Rosea’ behind the greenhouse are quite a sight.