Male flowers cover Mallotus japonicus? The flowers are not the same as the male ones at Ventnor. One or the other must be female? This small tree is absolutely covered.

Flower spikes show up already on Schefflera delavayi.

I really do now believe that our ancient leafless Magnolia nitida is now well on the way to a full recovery after its total defoliation this spring after the drought years. A wet summer has saved it! Just look at the new secondary new growth.

More hydrangea pruning above the drive.

And below it where the hydrangeas were connecting with the traffic.

A windy August day on the beach where there were only 3 cars and misery for tourists. On Sunday there were 300.

2023 – CHW
Bach home and the Hedychiums are out.

Hedychium yunnanense ‘Lago’ (BSWJ 9717).

Hedychium coccineum flowering better than ever before.

Hedychium tengshongense (WWJ 11964) seems very similar to H. yunnanense.

Last flower on Rhododendron ‘Harrow Hybrids’.

Rhododendron ‘Blue Tit’ with a fair showing of secondary flowers.

Magnolia ‘Yakeo’ with 20 flowers.

2022 – CHW

Returning to Cornwall the horrible sight of so many dead things from drought. A few magnolias half defoliated, many dead hydrangeas, and many dead young rhododendrons. At least there has been some light rain in the last week and drizzle all morning. Nevertheless it is nearly as bad now as 1976. The only big plus is that Jamie and the team have spent several days trying to save the Rhododendron sinogrande and Rhododendron macabeanum with some success. These were the main casualties of 1976 of all sizes and ages as were the mature beech trees here which had severe crown dieback. I saw many dead beech and sycamore trees besides the motorway yesterday from Bristol to Cornwall. Beyond Exeter whole rows of mature poplars dead too. Our sycamores between the Top Lodge and in the village are shedding leaves but the rain may just have saved them.

Spores from Dicksonia antarctica caught in cobwebs under the long fruiting fronds. Has the drought encouraged a bumper crop?

Chicken of the woods, Laetiporus sulphureus, growing on an upright oak tree. Oblivious to the drought it would seem.

Hedychium tengchongense ‘Trum Trom’ (WWJ 11964) is the first of the gingers to flower this year at last.

Final clearance of the Kitchen Garden now completed by Frankie and old paths and bridges reinstalled. Planting of the start of the new Malus collection can now proceed in the spring.

Then to Old Park to view drought casualties.

Even the Gunnera manicata beds are suffering here and there.

Dieback, leaf drop, and death in young magnolias. The plants put in this spring in sunny spots are all nearly dead as I had feared.

A young Rhododendron sinogrande has shed its old leaves but survives in a shady spot below a spring.

A dead camellia by the fernery on top of a hot dry bank.

Dead hydrangeas by The Hovel by the dozen.

Major lead drop on the magnolia ‘Caerhays Splendour’ on the drive.

The sad remains of the flowers of Hydrangea ‘Ayesha’. Shrivelled and rejected.

Strangely the 20 autumn planted Matsumae cherries below White Styles are all fine as are the Cotoneaster and Sasanqua camellia collections here. Two deaths in the Amelachier collection but 16 survive. Amelanchier were spring planted and there is a lesson here. AUTUMN PLANTING IS BEST.

2021 – CHW
Colin French found Sibthorpia europaea in flower in a boggy area above West Portholland. He had never seen this plant actually in flower in all his years of recording wildflowers in Cornwall. The flowers are tiny.

2020 – CHW
Work is now just underway on the conversion of ‘The Hovel’ into two new residential units for staff or retired staff. In my youth this building housed piglets which were grown and fed up with much mess, smell and rats, into slaughterable size by Gordon Trudgeon. The name of the building however derives from an even earlier use as a coal store (coal hovel) when coal was delivered by sea to Porthluney Beach and, as a highly combustible product, was not one which you stored in or near the main house. The building dates from the 1880s and was used in a film called ‘Dangerous Exile’ in 1957 with Finlay Currie who was then a big star and who gave my father a christening present for me (or so I was told by Dad). The film was a flop with lots of black and white running about on the cliffs in semi darkness. You can see it occasionally on channel ‘97’ on a very dull Boxing Day but I would not bother.

Until about 20 years ago the building was used by the keepers for pheasant rearing but this too was totally impractical in the building.

In clearing out decades of junk before the builders arrived we saved for posterity the two zinc lined canoes which my great-grandfather used to row out to Gull Rock in (three miles?). These were once housed in the boathouse at Porthluney Beach which is remembered only in old postcards (together with the jetty to receive the coal) from pre WW1. I guess the Home Guard demolished the boathouse in WW2 when the pill boxes and tank traps were installed.We expected to find the boat which the French criminal rowed across the Channel in WW2 and arrived at Porthluney walking up through the minefield unnoticed by the Home Guard. He claimed he was a refugee from the Nazis but this proved to be untrue. I actually think his two seater rowing boat rotted away on the lake 30 years ago but not before my brother nearly drowned falling off it into very muddy water aged four or five.

2019 – CHW
Nyssa aff. sinensis (FMWJ 13122) with reddish new secondary growth leaves. Autumn colour on young leaves! What this species may lack in flowers it easily makes up for in leaf colour.

Ehretia thyrsiflora with purplish secondary new growth after the recent rain. Look at the white speckling on the new growth bark as well. Very good. The botanists from Nantes recognised this in the spring but all the reference books are silent.

Mespilus germanica (planted 2011) with the odd late flower and a good crop of ripening fruit at the same time.

Crataegus combyi with its first fruits here. I cannot find this in the reference books so far but we have two decent plants.

Crataegus wattiana with now nearly ripe blackish fruits. We viewed this three weeks ago.

Carpinus polynura with attractive reddish new growth which I have not seen before.

Sorbus hupehensis can have white or pink berries depending on the exact form. We wait to see what colour these will turn into from this first flowering as a young plant.

2018 – CHW
Some rain and everything in the garden looking much healthier. We can now assess the drought damage.Lapageria ‘Flesh Pink’ is out about a month earlier than usual.

Ditto the elderly Lapageria rosea beside it.

A very drought ridden and now dead Hydrangea villosa.

This is the same robinia as I photographed six to eight weeks ago. I wonder now in view of its flowering span if it is Robinia x slavinii ‘Hillieri’ rather than Robinia hispida var kelseyi as I thought earlier. Both are said to flower in June but the leaf structure looks more like R. x slavinii? Not sure.

Laurel cutting on the Main Ride started today.

2017 – CHW
The Lapageria rosea has been out for about a fortnight but I had omitted to photograph it. Only one of the elderly plants survives.

A young plant beside it is doing well with some slug damage to the leaves. This was a gift from Tom Hudson planted with plenty of dung which may flower soon.