2025 – CHW
2024 – CHW
Camellia japonicas now rushing out into flower all around.
Camellia japonica ‘Lulu Belle’ suddenly full out.
Camellia japonica ‘Kick Off’ just getting going.
The variable shaped flowers of Camellia japonica ‘May Costa’. I have often seen this one out several weeks earlier and had been looking out for it.
Camellia oleifera ‘Pink Icicle’ (C. oleifera x C. williamsii ‘November Pink’) is, as you might expect when you think about it, rather a mess. Quite how this cross produced a double flower is questionable?
Camellia japonica ‘Jovey Carlyon’ had a single errant flower in late November. Now it has a few more flowers. Bred at Trewithen in 1987 apparently and not Tregrehan as you would expect.
Camellia japonica ‘Faith’ also has variable sized (and a bit insipid) flowers.
Pterostyrax sp. nova (Crug 15165) is, as we have seen, semi evergreen even after the cold spell.
Camellia reticulata ‘Lasca Beauty’ has its first flower today.
2023 – CHW
Mature and immature female cones on Araucaria bidwillii (or A. angustifolia?)
Mature and immature female cones on Araucaria bidwillii (or A. angustifolia?)
First flowers out above the greenhouse on Rhododendron ‘Bo Peep’ – Pink Form.
First colour showing on Magnolia ‘Todd’s Forty Niner’.
First garden tour of the year. Belgians, French, Spanish and Czech gardeners and nurseryman led by Raf Lenaerts. Raf also gifted an assortment of Magnolias listed below:-
M. ‘Lennon’
M. delavayi (pink) x grandifloraM. figo var crassipes x (foveolata x laevifolia)
M. (laevifolia x champaca) x (laevifolia x maudiae)
M. Opipara
Plenty of flower out on a young Azalea ‘Greenway’.
First flowers out on Rhododendron ririei above the Main Ride.
2022 – CHW
Camellia reticulata ‘Show Girl’ below Rookery Path is, as usual, outstanding and very early (C. sasanqua ‘Narumigata’ x C. reticulata ‘Damanao’).
Camellia ‘Christmas Beauty’ with its first late January flower! A nice enough red and new to us.
A sister seedling to Jaimie’s cross, Rhododendron ‘Maisie’, is just out. It does not have the reddish blotches in the trumpet that ‘Maisie’ does (Rh. moupinense x Rh. chrysodoron). ‘Maisie’ is registered with the Rhododendron Society but this one is not.
Unnoticed until now Rhododendron ‘Crossbill’ is suddenly full out. I looked on Sunday but this is at the back of the original clump.
Camellia x williamsii ‘Hiraethlyn’ was cut down a few years ago and given more light. It is a splendid show today and possibly the best camellia seen today by Jaimie and I.
Tom Hudson’s wild collected Rhododendron ririei a splendid (if slightly LBGT) colour as it opens up.
Carpinus kawakamii in its full evergreen glory. The only evergreen Carpinus.
2021 – CHW
A Burncoose trip started in the usual rain but improved.
Lonicera x purpusii ‘Winter Beauty’ out in the sun in the nursery.
The herbaceous potting has been going on apace and the beds in the trade area are starting to be tidied up after the rather dramatic path widening to make it quicker to pick up plants in small vehicles.
Ribes laurifolium ‘Amy Doncaster’ nearly out. A nice red tinge to the foliage.
The new multi-span tunnel is getting there. Needs a warm still day to get the covers on.
Camellia ‘Red Dahlia’ out in the two/three year old camellia tunnel which is already emptying fast from internet orders.
Camellia ‘Sundae’ just out here but not yet in the garden at Caerhays. Poor colour as yet.
Good to see a crop of the newly introduced to the catalogue Camellia ‘Show Girl’.
Masses of rhododendron liners awaiting potting.
Santolina ‘Lemon Fizz’ – a few stock plants put aside as this is not yet for sale online I believe.
A huge single very light pink camellia outside the front door of The Copper House which sits nearby the nursery entrance. I think it is probably Camellia japonica ‘Akebono’ which was a Japanese variety introduced to the US in 1931. Certainly it is a very old plant outside the front door of what was once the office of the Williams Estates Cornish Mining Company Ltd. This was wound up in 1964 when the Copper House was sold by my father and great-uncle, P M Williams.
This huge beech tree at the entrance to The Copper House was felled by order of the highways department as a threat to the main road (A393).
A fine huge clump of the semi evergreen Lonicera fragrantissima on the roadside by the nursery entrance and near The Copper House.
A fine Picea amorika in The Copper House garden. Around 40 to 50 years old.
