2025 – CHW
The light rain has freshened everything up and the leaf is rushing on. 20+ house martins today.
Magnolia laevifolia ‘Honey Velvet’ flowers do not seem to open out flat but drop once they are cup shaped.
Magnolia stellata ‘Jane Platt’ growing in shade on Hovel Cart Road.
Azaleas and Rhodos now planted in Higher Quarry Nursery as we await the welcome rain to come today.
Magnolia ‘Black Tulip’ x M. liliiflora ‘Holland Red’ still have good flowers weeks after first opening.
Maddenia wilsonii with flowers was admired by Jim Gardener last weekend.
Stachyurus macrocarpus (BSWJ 14678) is still tremendous in flower and aptly named.
Magnolia cavaleriei var. platypetala not out and rather wind battered.
Pseudopanax ‘Moa’s Toes’ – the 3 pronged leaves only emerge as the plant develops.
Magnolia ‘Gold Finch’ – sparsely flowered as usual.
Magnolia ‘Tinkerbelle’ is dwarfish and upright but a very good colour. A Vance Hooper creation in New Zealand. (M. x soulangeana ‘Sweet Simplicity’ x M. ‘Cameo’).
Magnolia ‘Daybreak’ x M. ‘Gold Cup’ – only a little yellow.
Magnolia ‘Amethyst Flame’ – another dwarfish grower for the smaller garden. Another of Vance Hooper’s (M. liliiflora x M. ‘Vulcan’).
Magnolia ernestii has few flowers this year and they have still to open.
Magnolia kobus ‘Pink Kobus’ now a large tree outside the front gates. Rather pinker than the pink M. salicifolia and quite good in the sun. From Lunaplant.
2024 – CHW
Rhododendron ‘Emma Williams’ just coming to its best by 4-in-Hand. Not yet properly out on the drive.
Rhododendron ‘Emma Williams’ just coming to its best by 4-in-Hand. Not yet properly out on the drive.
Magnolia ‘Sunray’ in Kennel Close – one of 8 yellows looking good here today.
New leaves as good as ever on Acer campestre ‘Red Shine’.
Magnolia ‘Tranquillity’ – a not very pleasant oddity and not at all tranquil to me!
Young plants of Rhododendron loderi ‘Sir Edmund’ flowering well for the first time. (Sir Edmund Loder presumably?)
The 15-20 sacrifice camellias replanted below White Styles.
The 24 Matsumae cherries in a double avenue continue to impress.
A young Magnolia ‘Goldstar’ below White Styles showing up well for the first time.
First flowering of a Magnolia ‘Flamingo’ at the entrance to Old Park. Very similar to M. ‘Peachy’ and not unlike M. ‘Daybreak’. However rather better than the somewhat battered flowers seen a while ago on a supposed M. ‘Flamingo’ in area 25 of Kennel Close.
2023 – CHW
Howling gales for 2 days. With 50+ mile an hour winds we were forced to shut the gardens yesterday on safety grounds. All other Great Gardens and some National Trust ones did as well. Unbelievable rain for April and the roads totally flooded on the way back from Charles’s Rettalack’s funeral at the Truro crematorium yesterday. The Cornish farming community stood gossiping in the rain outside the ‘crem’ without batting an eyelid. Rev. Warner, who first met Charles Retallack in 1975 as the then Caerhays churchwarden, gave an excellent send off but didn’t hang about in the gale afterwards. No wake so Simon Trudgeon and I had our own! Sadly Margaret Retallack broke her hip over the weekend and had to miss her husband’s funeral which was recorded for her.A visit to a tenanted dairy farm on the estate in the rain to discuss the future. Large gum boots needed as you can see but the cattle had recently been turned out of the overwintering sheds. Enjoy a rather seasonally full slurry tank of S.H. one T!
Howling gales for 2 days. With 50+ mile an hour winds we were forced to shut the gardens yesterday on safety grounds. All other Great Gardens and some National Trust ones did as well. Unbelievable rain for April and the roads totally flooded on the way back from Charles’s Rettalack’s funeral at the Truro crematorium yesterday. The Cornish farming community stood gossiping in the rain outside the ‘crem’ without batting an eyelid. Rev. Warner, who first met Charles Retallack in 1975 as the then Caerhays churchwarden, gave an excellent send off but didn’t hang about in the gale afterwards. No wake so Simon Trudgeon and I had our own! Sadly Margaret Retallack broke her hip over the weekend and had to miss her husband’s funeral which was recorded for her.A visit to a tenanted dairy farm on the estate in the rain to discuss the future. Large gum boots needed as you can see but the cattle had recently been turned out of the overwintering sheds. Enjoy a rather seasonally full slurry tank of S.H. one T!
Then another farmyard trip to investigate whether to overwinter 100 of our own mature (beef) cattle next winter in sheds on another (formally) tenanted farm on the estate. This would mean that we could house all the Home Farm cattle rather than having 80 or so overwintering outside on fodder crops. If our current application for Higher Tier Countryside Stewardship is to have any reasonable chance of success then it is imperative that no cattle are outside over the winter poaching up the ground and causing topsoil erosion. This seems a better option than building out our own new shed, for which we already have a hard fight planning permission, when the cost of borrowing for new projects is now 6.5% rather that 3%.
A huge beech tree in the Rookery yesterday but virtually no damage to any plants.
The 10,000 Daffodils newly planted in the Old Kitchen Garden are doing well.
2022 – CHW
Six house martins flying over the lawn this evening.
I attach a submission to Professor Wang, the registrar of the International Camellia Society, concerning Camellia x williamsii ‘Delia Williams’. Quite dull perhaps but an interesting little bit of Caerhays/Trewithen history.
Click here to see it.
Magnolia ‘Apricot Brandy’ with one flower out and the peculiar coloured buds.
Enkianthus campanulatus ‘Venus’ is the first one of the campanulatus varieties to be out.
Looking online and in the reference books the only species of evergreen euonymus which fits what we saw yesterday is Euonymus myrianthus. Despite the moss covering, interesting bark. This is certainly a huge tree and perhaps a record or larger than the current record of this species? Hillier’s calls E. myrianthus a large evergreen shrub?
Frankie and the mini digger have tidied up the roots by the beech trees below Donkey Shoe and a new laurel hedge is in place.
Two camellia stumps removed to make a perfect site for new rhododendrons.
Rhododendron impeditum ‘JC Williams’
Rhododendron soilenhense now full out.
Rhododendron ‘Martha Wright’ and Magnolia ‘Yakeo’.
Magnolia ‘Yakeo’ and Rhododendron veitchianum ‘Cubittii Group’.
Rhododendron ‘Blue Tit’ and Rhododendron ‘Elizabeth’.
A single tiny flower on the aptly named Magnolia ‘Mighty Mouse’.
The leylandii stumps have gone!
2021 – CHW
Magnolia ‘Black Bird’ (parentage unknown) has come out properly in the Isla Rose plantation. Well worth its place.
Magnolia ‘Black Bird’ (parentage unknown) has come out properly in the Isla Rose plantation. Well worth its place.
Rhododendron neriiflorum phaedropum flowering even better this year in what was Orchid House Nursery bed – now a species rhododendron planting. Very like the old Rh. neriiflorum clump which died out on the drive 25 years ago.
The often forgotten and unseen huge Magnolia x veitchii ‘Isca’ by the Rookery Nursery bed.
Camellia ‘Grace Albritton’ on Rookery Path is late flowering with pinkish outer petals.
This Camellia x williamsii ‘Francis Hanger’ was cut down to reshoot five or six years ago and, today, looking wonderful.
Magnolia ‘Pickards Garnet’ has been out for weeks. A 40-year-old plant still only about 6-7ft tall and 12-15ft wide. An amazing display from what is an Amos Pickard seedling from Magnolia x soulangeana ‘Picture’. Magnolia ‘Pickards Ruby’ grows nearby and on the drive.
