8th August 1897 – 2020 | The Garden Diary

FJW 1955-2007

CHW 2015-

JCW 1897-1939

CW 1940-1955

2020 – CHW
Rubus phoenicolasius is ripe in parts and the young pheasants have not yet eaten the fruits as they will. An artist has asked to come and paint this ornamental bramble but they will be too late in September.

Tail end flowers on Hydrangea involucrata ‘Viridescens’ above The Hovel.

Rubus lineatus only has a couple of fruit clusters this year but is making a decent shrub.

A top grafted Sorbus reducta with fruits forming.

Lots of seeds have set on an old Rhododendron schlippenbachii above the drive at Red Linney. Unusual to see so many. Asia needs to collect when ripe later on.

Hydrangea ‘Blue Wave’ (‘Mariesii Perfecta’) looking good on the drive. A better blue than some years and this clump are in full shade.

Alison’s hanging basket begonias at the top lodge as good as ever above her front door.

2019 – CHW
A collection of Clethra in flower today:Clethra tomentosa ‘Cottondale’ is a suckering species from the SE USA. It grows to around 6ft in height here with a similar spread.

Clethra alnifolia ‘Pink Spires’ is single stemmed here with a rather floppy habit. Looks good beside C. tomentosa and is a good border shrub.

Clethra kaipoensis flowering for the first time here. An upright tall growing tree with reddish new growth stems and striated more mature bark. I need to look up where we got this from.

Clethra monostachya (a second plant to the one seen a few days ago) is nearly over but setting copious seeds on the former flower racemes.

Two plants of Clethra pringleyi. One is over with seed pods forming and is ready for Asia to collect. On the other the flowers are not yet out.

2018 – CHW
An occasional shower and a definite cooling of the temperature. Heavy rain for Saturday forecast. The worst of the drought for our garden plants may now be over?The Magnolia denudata ‘Forrests Pink’ which was felled by a large leylandii in the winter has reshot with great vigour. We saw this three months ago. It is in a damp spot so the drought has made no difference.

The best blue mophead hydrangea in the place; or so my father always said. It grows in shade. It is not quite the same as Hydrangea ‘Enziandom’ but quite close. Nearer to Hydrangea ‘Benelux’ perhaps?

So far the hedychium have not been eaten by roe deer as they were last year. The stems were reduced to pulp last September.

2017 – CHW
Overhanging our garden is Acacia dealbata loaded with ripe seeds. They hang down in tassels like sophora seeds.

One of those big leaved hebes that grow badly in wet Cornwall is doing well here in Seaview. This is Hebe ‘Great Orme’ I think.

2016 – CHW
No entry.
2015 – CHW
Several people have commented on the extraordinary colour of a clump of mophead hydrangeas up from Red Linney on the bank. They are Hydrangea Selma, planted in 2009 and billed as being a very dark red. In our acid soil they are as dark a purple as I have ever seen in a hydrangea and quite superb in full sun.

Above Four in Hand is a late flowering buddleia with small purple flower spikes; Buddleia lindleyana. A Chinese species which is strikingly beautiful and introduced in 1843 by Robert Fortune.

On the top wall are very old clumps of Fuchsia magellanica ‘Alba’. It flowers sparsely in shade and the white flowers have a faint mauve tinge. According to Hillier’s the correct name is now Fuchsia magallanica var molinae whereas the ‘true’ ‘Alba’ has a pink corolla! JCW collected fuchsia species in the 1930s and this, like Fuchsia gracilis and Fuchsia riccartonii, is one of the few survivors. It enjoys frequent pruning but would grow to six feet if left unchecked and has nice peeling bark in winter when the woody stems are mature. A few of the hardier fuchsia hybrids which I collected 40 plus years ago still survive in the bed along from the old gents’ urinal but I can no longer remember their names and most are hardy reds with blueish-purple corollas. Pretty dull by fuchsia standards today. Without a conservatory most of the species offered by Burncoose now are simply too tender. I wonder if JCW tried any fuchsia hybrids? Certainly P D Williams at Lanarth produced some erica hybrids which are still sold today and introduced the Spanish Erica canaliculata to Cornwall.

1917 – JCW
Some R decorum, Auriculatum going over, several kinds of mountain rhodo’n show flowers. 10332 is the best. Buddleia veitchii is nearly over, the dark one is good. The hydrangeas have begun – Romneya and a hybrid Gladiolus are good. Some fair Cyclamen.