2025 – CHW
Camellia x williamsii ‘Delia Williams’ with just the odd double flower and hence the previous confusion with ‘Citation’.
Camellia japonica ‘Optima’ by the side door. A good late season flowerer with the odd dark pink sport here and there.
A good go at the laurel below Slip Rail.
Early flowers on Crataegus induta.
Sorbus caloneura in flower already.
Acer japonicum in flower.
Magnolia ‘Wim Rutten’ (M. ‘Forrest’s Pink’ x M. ‘Marilyn’) – selected by Philippe de Spoelberch. Named after Wim Rutten the founder of Magnoliastore (1940-2006).
Pomaderris apiculata now out in flower.
Rhododendron ‘Broughtonii’ grown from tissue culture.
Jaimie’s hybrid with stripes on the opening flowers.
Magnolia ‘Raven’ – A M. liliiflora selection from Korea. Fragrant. From Millais Nurseries originally.
Two plants side by side of Enkianthus serrulatus. One full out and one still in tight bud.
Azalea ‘Koromo-Shikibu’ just opening. A form of Rhododendron linearifolium, as was, now Rhododendron stenopetalum ‘Linearifolium’.
The tiny flowers of Magnolia ‘Mighty Mouse’ cover the tiny plant.
Lizzie’s ‘Honesty’ (Lunaria annua) from her mother’s garden. It can be an annual or a biennial.
2024 – CHW
No rain now for 3 whole days. Remarkable!Caerhays has now planted the pure white form of Staphylea holocarpa which grows so well at Burncoose.
No rain now for 3 whole days. Remarkable!Caerhays has now planted the pure white form of Staphylea holocarpa which grows so well at Burncoose.
Which is this unlabelled and unmapped Lindera species. Lindera sericea I think. Despite earlier deer damage to the single trunk this small tree is growing well.
Maddenia hypoleuca nearly died in the droughts and I prune out the dead today. Needs to be grown in more shade.
Styrax japonicus ‘Purple Dress’ just coming into leaf.
An unnamed TH collected Lithocarpus which I hope he can one day identify as its is developing really well.
Flower on Roy Lancaster’s Ilex spinigera. A younger plant than our original.
Distylium myricoides ‘Blue Cascade’ making good growth despite the attention of the deer.
More laurel to dig out to enlarge and extend this clearing.
First flowers out on Rhododendron ‘Nancor’. A month earlier than usual.
Lithocarpus fenestratus (NJM 13074) with its peculiar new growth.
Rhododendron haemalum ‘Atropurpureum’. Asia must take cuttings please!
The scented rhododendron in the front of this clump is about to die. Leaves drooping and no flowers unlike the others in the clump which are nearly over. Drought or did it blow over in a gale?
2023 – CHW
A visit to Burncoose to make our first video about the restoration of The Cooper House and Coach House. DJW did the honours.
27 different roof pitches to re-slate and 3 completely new chimneys.
The Coach House is already finished and ready for its first letting with 5 bedrooms and can sleep up to 8.
Half the floor removed in the Old Copper House office which once had rows of desks like pews in a church. Appalling rot in the floor. Exterior iron gutters being painted inside.
Wet rot in door frames.
Ceiling collapsed above the main stairs.
The rather rotten front porch.
The Burncoose front gate being mended.
The previous owners furniture stored in a bedroom. A bonfire shortly I expect by the smell of damp and woodworm.
Wheeler Roofing and KPK Builders have been doing the refurbishment works.
2022 – CHW
A warm but somewhat overcast Good Friday. Karol and I managed three bits of filming including the Rhodoleia and various Michelias which Burncoose has for sale.
Magnolia x veitchii ‘Isca’ and Rhododendron ‘Cornish Red’ from the lawn.
Then a yellow magnolia garden tour with Geraint & Anne Richards.
Magnolia ‘Solar Flair’ – like many of the yellows this year a good colour and no leaves to be seen yet.
Rhododendron ‘Chip Luma’ – wonderful cross.
Magnolia ‘Banana Split’ – silly name perhaps but not entirely inaccurate.
Magnolia ‘Apricot Brandy’ with its peculiar buds and aptly named flowers.
The first wisteria flowers are starting to open by the Playhouse.
The Trevarrick barns development is two to three months from completion. Not as on time as we might have hoped but the new water main connection has yet to happen. South West Water are as hopeless, inconsistent, bureaucratic, expensive and slow as Western Power.
Another stump gone with the mini digger and another good planting place below Slip Rail.
My father’s hybrid, Rhododendron morii x Rhododendron euchates, just coming out by Georges Hut. Several other clumps in the garden and at Burncoose.
Rhododendron ‘Countess of Haddington’ plastered in flower as usual. We saw the first flowers showing a fortnight ago.
A good young Rhododendron calophytum with its first two flowers.
The scent at Donkey Show is superb – not least from these two clumps:
Rhododendron ‘Harry Tagg’
And Rhododendron ‘Ann Teese’.
2021 – CHW
An attempt today to photograph the flowers on various Rhododendron sinogrange, some pure and some grown from seed, which have considerable flower variations. Cold at night still but warm by day. Rain needed desperately after nothing for a month.Magnolia ‘Ivory Chalice’ (Magnolia acuminata x Magnolia denudata) in Old Park starting to flower away.
An attempt today to photograph the flowers on various Rhododendron sinogrange, some pure and some grown from seed, which have considerable flower variations. Cold at night still but warm by day. Rain needed desperately after nothing for a month.Magnolia ‘Ivory Chalice’ (Magnolia acuminata x Magnolia denudata) in Old Park starting to flower away.
Cotoneaster chayes with bronzy new growth below White Stiles. One of the newish collection of 25 species.
Wild honeybees are busy in a hole in an old sycamore where they have lived for years.
Magnolia ‘Peachy’ in its full glory today below Slip Rail.
Rhododendron sinogrande ‘Lord Rudolf’. Pink in bud but eventually fading to creamy-pink.
First flowers now showing on Embothrium lanceolatum. Early, I think.
A sinogrande seedling with pink stripes in its flowers as it opens. This quickly fades. We saw another like this in the Rookery a week or so ago, but it had much smaller leaves.
A Rhododendron sinogrande with huge but fairly pale flowers.
Rhododendron suoilenhense now full out in all its glory.
First flower out early on Rhododendron loderi ‘King George’.
Michelia maudiae ‘Touch of Pink’ just opening. It is only a ‘touch’ at the tip of the tepals!
Rhododendron ‘Lady Montague Group’ (Exbury).
Rhododendron arboreum ‘Sir Charles Lemon’ can be a sparse flowerer but not here.
A more conventionally coloured Rhododendron sinogrande – a massive truss.
And yet another without such a large truss.
This is the ancient Magnolia soulangeana ‘Alba Superba’ (probably) growing at Trelowarren this afternoon. Slightly frosted.
