2025 – CHW
A trip to find what is new in Penvergate and to view our Magnolia x soulangeana varieties.
The first decent flower on Magnolia ‘Emperor’. This looks to be going to give M. ‘Felix Jury’ genuine competition.
Magnolia ‘Big Dude’ (M. x soulangeana ‘Wada’s Picture’ x M. sprengeri ‘Diva’). Is this a bit different to the more mature plant behind the greenhouse?
Magnolia ‘Yellow Bird’ just coming out.
Magnolia ‘Sybille’ (M. x soulangeana ‘White Giant’ x M. ‘Leda’).
Magnolia × soulangeana ‘Brozzonii’ – in Penvergate – Area 01 – and on the Main Ride opposite the tree fern.
Magnolia × soulangeana ‘Alba Superba’ – in Penvergate – Area 01.
Magnolia × soulangeana ‘Lombardy Rose’ – in Penvergate – Area 01. (May have been planted as Magnolia ‘Darrell Dean’ a Gresham hybrid but I think wrongly named).
Magnolia × soulangeana ‘Picture’ (also known as M. ‘Pickard’s Sundew’) – Main Ride opposite tree fern.
Mangolia × soulangeana ‘Lennei’ – the Record Tree near Tin Garden.
Magnolia x loebneri ‘Champaign’ is getting better and better – pink fading to white.
Magnolia ‘Elisa Odenwald’ flowering at the end of Old Park (M. × soulangeana ‘Lennei Alba’ x M. x veitchii). Another Gresham hybrid.
A rather poor first floor on Magnolia ‘Rose Quartz’ also at the end of Old Park. (M. × soulangeana ‘Lennei’ x M. brooklynensis ‘Blushing Belle’).
Magnolia floribunda var. tonkinensis doing nearly as well now a M. ‘Eternal Spring’.
Plants from the greenhouses and frames to go into Higher Quarry Nursery.
2024 – CHW
A wet day to complete the Burncoose Garden planting this year.
Magnolia ‘Fairy Blush’ just now out in Old Park.
Magnolia ‘Fairy Cream’ beside it.
A young Magnolia ‘Tropicana’ in Tin Garden giving its first good show.
Juglans ailantifolia with male catkins already evident even before the leaves.
An unfortunate slurry run off down the drive at Rosevallon Barns. Wasted a lot of time over the contractors stupidity.
Kalmia polifolia totally covered in flowers at the nursery entrance.
Mahonia x wagneri ‘Fireflame’ was planted out a year ago on the Burncoose drive. Flowers and new growth today.
Rhododendron hunnewellianum struggling to survive and half dead after the 2 droughts.
Agathosma pulchella full of new growth and flowers.
Zanthoxylum piperitum with tiny yellowish flowers and dark coloured new growth.
Stachyurus salicifolius ‘Fairy Tales’ now fully out in flower.
Sinojackia xylocarpa full out a month earlier than I would expect it. Slow growing and very Styrax like flowers.
Quercus dentata ‘Carl Ferris Miller’ with male catkins.
2023 – CHW
After a warm Easter weekend the first bluebells appear outside the front door over the Bank Holiday.
After a warm Easter weekend the first bluebells appear outside the front door over the Bank Holiday.
Several later season magnolias still looking good in Kennel Close.
Magnolia ‘Wim Rutten’ is now opening its flowers quickly. 4 in all – first flowering and interesting.
The blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) is a joy in all the hedgerows around and about.
Magnolia ‘Sentinel’ is a Gresham Hybrid. The way the buds and flowers curve over at the top is attractive. This looked to be a dull and uninteresting magnolia initially but not now.
Magnolia ‘Amethyst Flame’ – NZ bred by Vance Hooper (M. liliiflora x M. ‘Vulcan’) is a small flower but increasingly good too. This ought to be grown more widely. Small growing (obviously).
Several of our Carpinus species are starting to produce flower catkins. Here Carpinus tschonoskii. Quite a show!
Also for the first time on Carpinus caroliniana ‘Red Fall’. Well before the leaves appear.
A young Magnolia labelled ‘Flamingo’ with 3 flowers. Sadly it is not true to name as ‘Flamingo’ should be a mix of yellow and pink similar to ‘Daybreak’.
Magnolia ‘Diana’ – first flowering – tiny flowers as yet.
The stand out new growth on Photinia lasiogyna.
A second Melliodendron xylocarpum with a dozen flowers above HQN. This one now growing in probably too much sun.
Illicium philippinense (CWJ 1246) was planted in 2017 but covered in flower at 5-6 feet in height today.
Photinia serratifolia var. ardisifolia (NMWJ 14513) with its splendid new growth which is very serrated.
First flowering of Viburnum ichangense (we have a Rubus species with the same name).
Attractive purple new leaves on Viburnum sympodiale (ex Nick Locke) planted last October.
2022 – CHW
Rhododendron hyperythrum ‘Omo’ – AM. Full out now and a very pure white as one might expect from this named form of the species.
A new camellia with the unlikely name of Camellia ‘Manuroad Road’ – from Stervinou originally. Variable flowers and very dark red.
Camellia reticulata ‘Debut’ getting going despite deer damage. Nice enough but not that markedly different. Worth propagating none the less.
Ribes longiracemosa living up to its name. Three more plants in the Isla Rose Plantation originally.
A young plant of Osmanthus yunnanensis with a few flowers. Deer nibbled to bits in previous years but it has revived.
First flowers showing high up on Rhododendron oreotrephes – an original wild collected clump which has been cut down several times and has self-seeded itself within the clump as the older trunks have gradually died off. A helpful characteristic! A light coloured form. I have seen much darker forms elsewhere.
Michelia ‘Fairy Cream’ comes out as ‘Fairy White’, alongside, is nearly over. This is just as good. ‘Fairy Lime’, also nearby, is still in tight bud.
Rhododendron haemaleum var. atrorubum (as in rhodo species pocket guide) (? var. atrorubens as on label) just out. We need to remember to propagate this especially for Peter Shotter who has it on his ‘wants’ list. Davidian described this as ‘dark red’ so the provenance of this remains uncertain as is stated in the Pocket Guide (which always has been too big for even my largest pocket).
Here are a few pictures of my (third) granddaughter, Lamorna, at her first family birthday party on her very first birthday yesterday (10th April).
2021 – CHW
Still cold overnight with a cold north wind. We need a day’s rain urgently now.Rhododendron ‘Elizabeth’ just coming out at the Four in Hand.
Still cold overnight with a cold north wind. We need a day’s rain urgently now.Rhododendron ‘Elizabeth’ just coming out at the Four in Hand.
The new laundry now has a sink, and the windows are in.
Amelanchier alnifolia ‘Obelisk’ coming into flower at the sales point. I am thinking of starting an Amelanchier collection next winter in Old Park.
Azalea ‘Blushing Bride’ in the greenhouse. Used to grow outside above the greenhouse and now by the back yard. Clearly a house plant really but it does survive in the garden.
Magnolia ‘Purple Globe’ is not, as yet, even faintly ‘globe-like’.
Wisteria flower buds swelling up.
Magnolia ‘Blushing Belle’ is a fine show today on Sinogrande Walk. This is Magnolia ‘Yellow Bird’ x Magnolia ‘Caerhays Belle’ and very well worth its place in any garden flowering mid-April (here). A hint of yellow but not too much. One which we should definitely propagate by grafting for the Burncoose catalogue.
Magnolia ‘Purpurascens’. Magnolia denudata x Magnolia sprengeri ‘Diva’ supposedly. Cannot see this really but this matches the picture in the Eisenhut book.
As good a carpet of violets as I have ever seen on the steep bank by the fernery. A mix of blue and purple shades but no whites in this patch.
Elizabeth Bolitho on the occasion of her 95th birthday with her sons Edward and Alverne and a presentation Magnolia ‘F J Williams’. Elizabeth Bolitho worked and lived at Caerhays in the early 1950s.
