Beside it a huge Eucryphia x nymansensis ‘Nymansay’ looks fine but flowers shrivelled higher up.

Hydrangeas dying on the drive.

And our best blue mophead hydrangeas look ghastly.

Liquidambar acalycina however thrives in the heat with good secondary new growth.

Good growth now on the pollarded Tilia cordata ‘Winter Orange’.

Cattle allowed in to graze the frazzled grass in White Styles. We cannot graze the 200 odd hectares of wild flower meadows from 1st May to 1st August.

2025 – CHW

Jim Gardiner has kindly sent me these pictures of Emmenopterys henryi in full flower at Borde Hill Gardens this week. The flower is a bit like a Schizophragma with its marginal sterile flower bracts, which eventually turn pink, as they will on Emmenopterys.

This tree is a very rare flowerer in our UK climate. To perform like this the tree needs to be in a baking hot dry location in full sun. The Borde Hill trees have flowered regularly only since 2018 after 90 years. The tree at Wakehurst first flowered in 1987 but Jim says nothing this year as its roots have been damaged by a new pathway.
Our plants here of E. henryi and E. wilsonii are around 100 years old and have never flowered. They are planted within the woodland canopy and never get enough heat from the sun.Caerhays and Burncoose also grow Kew raised tissue cultured E. henryi which have grown well but not flowered in the 30 years since planted. One of the Kew tissue cultured plants did flower there after 40 years so perhaps there is hope.Anyway this was enough of a prompt for me to go and look at our 3 trees. No hint of any flowers as expected. The two old trees have no foliage within reach so I cannot send the promised leaf samples of our plants to Hilliers.

2024 – CHW
A visit to the garden of two Plant Heritage National Collections – Juglans and Pterocarya.

The view from the front of the house over a wild flower meadow.

Abelia grandiflora.

Cornus capitata had turned completely pink.

Quercus coccifera is very slow growing and shrubby. It appears more like a holly.

Pterocarya fraxinifolia where all the suckers have been removed from where the roots are above ground.

Juglans regia ‘Kaemonia’.

Juglans nigra ‘Student Orchard’.

Juglans macrocarpa.

Juglans nigra ‘Laciniata’.

Juglans ailantifolia ‘Campbell’ with a spreading habit.

Juglans x intermedia from the USA.

Juglans regia ‘Plovdivski’ from Bulgaria.

Juglans regia ‘Sunland’ from Yugoslavia loaded with walnuts.

Juglans × intermedia var. pyriformis ‘Carrière’.

Juglans sigillata.

Abies spectabilis with new and older cones.

Sorbus ulleungensis ‘Olympic Flame’.

Sorbus aucuparia ‘Titan’ with ripe berries.

Built on the site of an old Roman settlement.

Tilia chenmoui.

Quercus robur ‘Cristata’ – a most unusual tree!

Aesculus x neglecta ‘Autumn Fire’.

Aesculus glabra var. sargentii.

Juglans nigra (NG23).

Juglans regia ‘Conway Mayette’.

Cyclocarya cathayensis.

Juglans australis surviving but for how long?

Juglans cathayensis.

Fountains and mulberries.

Juglans neotropica growing in a pot and only outside the greenhouse in the summer. The first ever walnut was developing.

2023 – CHW

Viburnum sambucinum about to flower for the first time here.

Watering has saved these young rhododendrons in the Higher Quarry Nursery.

Cornus macrophylla, another evergreen species, is getting going but no flowers yet.

Viburnum fansipanensis (BSWJ 8302) also with swelling seed heads.

This newly planted Pseudotaxus chienii looks rather different from the established plant on Sinogrande Walk. Need to see which is the correct thing. I am suspicious of this as being too spreading and loose in habit?

A clump of Hydrangea paniculata ‘Tardiva’ in shade. Small flowers and not very impressive but this is a 30 year old clump.

Hydrangea aspera ‘Macrophylla’ flowers in 3 stages.

The hydrangeas are nearly over but the view down the drive is still is not bad.

After the rain a peculiar set of young new growth on Quercus phellos.

Pink and blue Hydrangea ‘Fireworks’ together.

See what a hit this clump of red hydrangea took in the drought last year but it is now recovering.

2022 – CHW

We are now in full drought conditions. Younger plants and especially rhododendrons are starting to die.

A new book on Viburnums arrives and this prompts me to go and have a look at our more recent plantings.

The latest book is by Andre Gayraud and complements Michael Dirr’s book on the same subject published in 2007. Gayraud’s book on Cornus has been especially helpful in identifying our 1991 planted Cornus collection where the labelling was not perfect. All our Viburnums here come from Crug Farm Nursery or Nicholas Lock Plants at Tregrehan Fair/CGS shows.

Viburnum awabuki is romping away but I had not seen it flower until today where there is a solitary flower now over. It came named as x awabuki but the reference books make clear there is a botanical muddle here which I wont go into. It grows to 20 feet in southern US states and is used as a hedging plant. A firm trunk or two developing here. In Japan there are trees 60 feet tall. Native to Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

Viburnum setigerum with a fine crop of seeds on a young plant. This was a 1901 Wilson introduction and can grow to 10-12 feet but with nodding branches as here. Yet to take in the autumn colours. Dirr rates this as being in his top 5 Viburnum species.

Viburnum atrocyaneum is a native of the N.W. Himalayas. A dense bushy shrub is developing with us but no flowers that I have seen as yet.

Viburnum phlebotricum struggling in the heat. A Japanese species which grows to about 10 feet if it survives?

Viburnum phlebotricum (BSW 11147) with much smaller leaves and also struggling.

Viburnum c hillieri ‘Winton’ not so bothered by the dry conditions. A nice new thing on the Burncoose website.

Viburnum wrightii – a Japanese species with attractive bright red fruits which we have yet to see here.

Viburnum fordiae – this evergreen species is making good progress and promises to become a large shrub. Native to China.

Viburnum hoangliense – a vigorous grower too with plenty of flowers and seeds now setting. This species does not feature in either of the Viburnum reference books!

Viburnum calvum – introduced by E.H. Wilson in 1904 but very rare in cultivation. Flowers just finishing as you can see. Close relative of V. tinus apparently but I am just getting to grips with all this.

Viburnum fansipanense (BWJ 8302). This species also does not feature at all in either of the reference books.

Viburnum wilsonae – Introduced from Sichuan by E.H. Wilson in 1908 but little known in cultivation today. Can reach 6-10 feet eventually.

Viburnum rhytidophyllum with, as usual, seed heads and next years flower buds visible. Now that the plant is no longer in full shade it flowered twice last year in its newly hot location as we saw in the diary.

Viburnum parvifolium – (BSWJ 76768). This is a mountain shrub from Taiwan and there is argument over the name which should perhaps be Viburnum yamadae? Dense habit and tiny leaves. We saw the tiny flowers a month or so ago.

Viburnum sambucinum has yet to be planted out but is flowering in the frames.

I went to view Viburnum globosum on the bank above HCR but the large shrub was ‘deado’!

2021 – CHW
A chef from Falmouth is determined to have seed from our zanthoxylum or pepper trees to flavour his fish dishes. Apparently the seed do not have to be ripe to fit the bill so I went to Forty Acre Wood today to view the prospects.Zanthoxylum piperitum is loaded with green seed but cutting off the seed clusters and collecting them is going to be difficult and time consuming with such a prickly tree (last time I photographed these two trees I got the naming the wrong way around). A spreading tree with no easy access to the top.

Zanthoxylum simulans is a smaller tree and not quite as loaded with (as yet unripe) seed as in previous years. Easier to collect from this one.

Zanthoxylum piperitum var. inerme is in Kennel Close with few seeds this year and a much younger tree.

Three plants of Zanthoxylum coreanum are also doing well in Kennel Close. They look very like Z. piperitum.

Z. armatum grows above the foliage camellias. And Z. acanthopodium was photographed in the nursery a while ago.

A good Magnolia virginiana full out but unseen in Forty Acres.