Deutzia scabra alongside it stunning still.

Azalea indica colours near the Top Lodge. At least half a dozen different plants. Most are sparse flowerers but one or two are covered. Two great banks of plants.

The same late flowering orange azalea as by the Fernery.

Podocarpus elongatus ‘Blue Chip’ has blue podocarps forming in profusion which I have not seen before on this supposedly tender South African species. Wonderful foliage colour and the new growth is perfect now for Asia to start cuttings going again.

Magnolia x brooklynensis ‘Titan’ has very yellow leaves. Drought strain I fear. Terminal?

Styrax japonicus ‘Jippei-Kawamure’ flowers properly for the first time with huge flowers. It has grown quickly into a small tree.

I finally locate our other (2014 planted) Carrierea calycina which is not where it should be on the plan. This one has a noticeably different leaf form to our older plant from Penrice Castle and a denser more upright growth habit. Compare these pictures to a day or two ago.

Flowers on a young Sorbus hupehensis.

Pterocarya rhederiana ‘Fern Leaf’ with its genuinely extraordinary foliage. This young plant has much better foliage than the one in the Rookery. Note the Pterocarya graft shooting at ground level which needs cutting out.

Cornus kousa var. chinensis ‘Xanthocarpa’ has yellow (not red) fruits which we can now look forward to as it flowers for the first time.

Deer have nibbled it!

Two decent plants of Rhododendron ‘Fabia’ – one now dead in the drought.

Broussonettia papyrifera – these two trees (1991 planted) are both females and what you see here are the spherical flower clusters. The males have catkins. We used to have a third male plant here which died so we will not see autumn fruits I fear.

2019 – CHW

Thank heavens for some proper rain. The garden looks so much better already and you can see everywhere water starved plants picking up and producing new growth.

The Liriodendron tulipifera also has flowers but they have been battered in the wind and rain. Quite different to those of Liriodendron chinense.

Syringa prestoniae ‘Minuet’ just open. Very pretty.

Two other very late flowering ‘American’ (see earlier description) deciduous azaleas by the Trevanion Holly. Dull colours but two to three weeks later than all the others.

Meliosma oldhamii is still not out but the inflorescences are huge.

Magnolia globosa has appeared after the rain. About half the buds have opened.

Magnolia virginiana ‘Satellite’ is now full out too but mainly about 12-15ft high at the top of the small tree.

2018 – CHW
HRH visits the Cornwall Red Squirrel Project stand at the Royal Cornwall Show today rather interrupting lunch!

2017 – CHW
A wet day at the Royal Cornwall Show. Large gold medal for the Burncoose stand in the flower tent designed by Louisa and Christine. Christine’s first attempt at a stand for us and very good.Attended the president’s lunch where the floral arrangement was cow-parsley and ornamental pheasant feathers. Odd! The food was excellent.

Dreadful and unbelievable election result. Britain will soon be as bankrupt as Greece. Stayed up most of the night drinking only water with Corbett. That is perhaps unbelievable too!

2016 – CHW
Sheila Reeves-Smyth (Lizzie’s aunt and Alice’s sister) 90th birthday party at Hardimount House, in Tullow, County Carlow, Ireland. One hundred and twenty guests and a house full of her enormous family who all talk in loud cheerful voices without listening to a word of any replies. Hysterical and gorgeous. The last relics of Anglo Irish colonialism at its very best. We could all have been in Sussex!Sheila’s garden is as good and well-tended a set of herbaceous borders as I have ever seen. Quite a few Burncoose shrubs on the walls too. Remarkable for someone aged 90 who lives on her own.Here is a flavour of the garden taken on my phone shortly after I had taken Christian Lamb (aged 97 and ex Tregrehan) on a garden tour while the drinking gets started properly.

A huge sit down lunch prepared entirely by Sheila’s children and very good too. On my table are the Shackleton family of Polar fame and a serious garden makeover (potential) customer from a nearby castle. Everyone very well animated but only one guest seriously drunk on departure which was quite a surprise. After a brief sleep we return for the post mortem and supper. Fortunately the wine supplies hold out and we give Terence some stick over the seating plan which was a gorgeous cock up wasting hours of happy time as not everyone had a name place and not everyone turned up ‘as expected’ (but what do you expect at this sort of party!).

2015 – CHW

Around the garden with managers from Eden and Heligan. Iain is much taken with Magnolia ‘Summer Solstice’ but Magnolia globosa is still not out and Magnolia virginiana ‘Satellite’ will not be out for a week or so.We look (again) at Enkianthus hirtinervus which they have not seen.  There are some old enkianthus at Heligan but no newer varieties.  Horticulture Week features an article on enkianthus based on my lecture.  Sadly what they depict as Enkianthus campanulatus most definitely is not as it is pink with stripes all over and much more like Enkianthus campanulatus var palibini.