2025 – CHW
Cornwall has been lucky in having periodic rain through the summer heatwaves but the recent named storm produced only an hour of drizzle and we are desperate for proper rain in the garden which is looking parched.

Jaimie spotted Laetiporus sulphureus – Chicken of the Woods – in Old Park.

Eucryphia cordifolia looking good.

Clethra alnifolia ‘Ruby Spice’ just coming out.

Clethra tomentosa ‘Cottondale’ full out and going over. A large suckering shrub now which is engulfing ‘Ruby Spice’.

Styrax wilsonii laden with seeds.

As is Dipelta floribunda.

Still tail end flowers on Magnolia sieboldii.

2024 – CHW
Remarkable regrowth now on the elderly and cut back Camellia japonica ‘White Nun’.

A secondary flower on Magnolia ‘Sweet Sixteen’.

A remarkable find. Clusters of acorns forming on the old original Lithocarpus cleistocarpus although there are also now secondary flowers. The old plant has never done this in my living memory (the younger one has) but will these clusters grow on to maturity? The result of 2 hot summers and, now, a wet one or is the old plant about to die?

Maackia chinensis has split out earlier on one side but now the whole tree has collapsed.

Eucryphia milliganii is not looking well and we need to restart with young plants.

Late flowers on a clump of Rhododendron maddenii.

Flowers on the rare Viburnum triphyllum which I do not remember seeing before? A huge drooping plant now. Planted in 2010.

Plenty of berries on a female form of Ilex cornuta.

Magnolia ‘Cleopatra’ covered in secondary flowers as it was last year.

Hoheria stylosa ‘Snow White’ performing well as a clump of three.

Carpinus shensiensis getting going after a bad start last year.

New growth on Quercus franchetii is only briefly tinged red.

Huge and already ripe/ mature seed clusters on a Lithocarpus pachyphyllus aged about 50.

2023 – CHW
Campsis grandiflora nearly over on the battlements in the Back Yard.

Pied Wagtail chicks in a vent above the Gents loos in the Back Yard.

Our largest and very much multi-stemmed Eucryphia x nymansensis ‘Nymansay’ on the path to Bramble Field.

Secondary flowers on Rhododendron ‘Blue Tit’.

Eucryphia milliganii already over and the plant is nearing the end of its life after 30 years or so. At Burncoose the same thing happened with a trio of this species.

Rhododendron auriculatum (originally tissue culture plants) nicely out despite some drought dieback and damage from the last two summers.

Seed setting here and there on Sorbus wardii.

The label on this magnolia has been lost but it is clearly a form of Magnolia kobus. Secondary flowers here and there again this year.

Fruits forming on Malus ‘Jelly King’ but nothing like the crop last year.

An excellent show on Crinum powellii with Brock deciding if he wants to stay with me or not.

Eucryphia cordifolia still some way off flowering and last years seeds are not ripe yet either.

Loads of small secondary flowers on the Playhouse wisteria after the rain.

2022 – CHW

Eucryphia x nymansensis ‘Nymansay’ now full out in the heat.

The Indian Bean Tree Catalpa bignonoides has enjoyed the hot dry summer and is flowering better than I have ever seen it. This tree used to grow in my grandmother’s garden on St. Mawe’s and we transplanted it here.

Clethra kaipoensis with interesting leaves and flowers just opening. Very erect and upright habit.

Clethra monostachya is a spreading small tree and quite different in habit.

Calycanthus floridus ‘Athens’ still has plenty of flowers.

Male and female catkin flowers on Platycarya strobilacea.

Fruits forming on Liquidambar formosana.

Fresh evidence of rabbits returning to the garden after a couple of years of very few.

Ross has felled a dead sycamore above Burns Bank.

Tom Hudson’s pink Magnolia delavayi.

Kitchen garden harrowed to remove more weeds and stones.

Eucommia ulmoides getting away well.

2021 – CHW
A charity open day at Leslie Baker’s immaculate garden in St Austell. I have visited the garden many times for plant exchanges but never seen it in August. Leslie’s view is that it was a late season and several of the Japanese anemones were not out and nor were all the Thalictrum or Crocosmias. Few people could better this garden as a perfect mix of spring flowering woody ericaceous shrubs and late summer borders.These lilies were superb but no name.

Here are four views across the garden.

Aconitum ‘Spark’s Variety’ was looking stunning.

Kirengeshoma palmata is difficult to grow well in a pot in the nursery but just coming into flower here in shade. Note no slug damage!

Anemone hupehensis ‘September Charm’ at the entrance.

2020 – CHW
Another flower on the rather different Magnolia delavayi (we think) from Clive Shitton. Our older and mature plants certainly do not have the three outer tepals which droop down like this.

Eucryphia x lucida flowering late in deep shade and shelter. The one by the greenhouse in full sun was over three weeks ago as you would expect and I had to check that the leaves were not, in part, trifoliate which would have made this a Eucryphia x intermedia variety.

Yet another large clump of 30 to 40 year old Rhododendron decorum. The bark gives it away here and is nothing like that of Rhododendron auriculatum. Lizzie and I smelt the scent 50 yards away today and tracked it down.

Good to see that the very recent grass cutting has avoided the regrowth on this nice clump of Aquilegia.

Another two (different) plants of Rhododendron excellans; one with purplish new growth and one without.

Just a few developing seed heads on Rhododendron excellans to cut off on one of the three plants planted in 2015 and doing well.

Every garden visit finds something completely and gorgeously new! This Mahonia species was a gift from Harvey Stephens, then running the Savill Garden. It clearly had no label on arrival but I guess it is Mahonia gracilipes but I see that Windsor have produced a few named hybrids between M. gracilipes and Mahonia eurybracteata so this may be a named form of what are now christened as Mahonia x savilliana in the latest Hillier’s. However M. gracilipes has slender stalked open branched sprays with purple-red outer petals and creamy white inner petals as here AND it flowers in summer which very few Mahonia species do. Then again M. gracilipes in the nursery has never flowered quite like this in pots but this is now a 4-5ft bush! Need to look at the leaves more closely to be certain I have this right.

Magnolia rostrata has not produced any seed heads this year unlike last. The veined leaves are as impressive as ever.

2019 – CHW
To the greenhouses to do some videos with Karol and Asia.Salvia confertiflora in flower here for the first time beside the main greenhouse. This is a woody perennial which is frost tender. Very beautiful and striking.

Melianthus villosus setting seed. This was grown from seed from Ventnor Botanic Garden. Not as tall growing as Melianthus major but very attractive in flower which I missed here. We must propagate the seeds of this rare South African species and get it into the catalogue.

Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon’ in full flower.

One of the Rubus bought in from the Plant Heritage Rubus stand has gone rampant after repotting. Rubus treutleri has alternate leaves and one stem has grown 6ft in six weeks.

2018 – CHW
One of the two large Fuchsia exorticatica has died in the drought outside the front door. The survivor has a good crop of juicy black fruits.

The Mexican dahlia species which flowered eventually last December had seemed dead but has suddenly reshot from the base.

As we feared many clumps of agapanthus were nearly killed in the frost. A few survivors struggle within the clumps and very few flowers this year which are rather paler than usual.

A hint of rain and the moles have reactivated their hunt for worms nearer the surface of the lawn.

2017 – CHW
The ancient Pittosporum tenuifolium in our Seaview garden.

A fat fruit forming on Passiflora caerulea. It will soon go yellow.