2024 – CHW (images to follow)
2023 – CHW
Exceptionally mild still and the garden is rushing on. So springlike that it could almost be the first week in March. Camellias everywhere and the garden could open on New Years Eve! Heavy showers through the day damp this expectation somewhat and a small storm again brews up.
The elderly Rhododendron mucronulatum is out now. I have seen it earlier. A darker colour than the one below the Fernery.
A pleasant surprise today. First flowering here of another very different but very splendid Polyspora collection from Crug Farm. This is Polyspora speciosa (KWJ 12204) but much better with very different leaves to out other older plant of the same name with a different collection number which first flowered a month ago. Look at the size of the flowers and leaves. Enormous!
A New Year’s Eve gathering to christen Serena and Neil’s baby, Lamorna Edith Cross, on a reasonable day weather wise.
Still cold and frosty but a fine day on New Year’s Eve.Seed still on a young Sorbus dunnii which I do not know. A Roundabarrow nursery purchase.
Michelia doltsopa well budded up with striking orange-brown indumentum on its swelling flower buds. So far, despite the gales, no leaf loss in the crown at all.
First odd flowers on Camellia ‘Adelina Patti’. High up on the bush are two flowers of which one is a pure red sport. No sign of any pure white flowers yet. Quite early for Adelina I think.
More storm damage. Here an ash branch by Rookery Gate. Not a big job to clear it up.
Our newish clump of Rhododendron ‘Winter Intruder’ is just about out. These plants were layers moved from the Rookery. Quite a bright colour on an overcast day but, as yet, unblemished by wind or frost.
2015 – CHW
New Years Eve – Heavy showers and rainbows but a chill in the air after lunch. Rhododendron ‘Chink’ was full out until the heave winds tore into it.
Strangely Rhododendron ‘Bo Peep’ is not showing colour and perhaps keeping to its normal early flowering season in late January or early February. Camellia x williamsii ‘George Blandford’ is coming out but the lower down flowers are small and poor.
Camellia x williamsii ‘Monica Dance’ is out at the top of the old plant in a similar fashion. Monica Dance grows outside the kitchen window at Burncoose and it is not that unusual for it to be in bloom by Christmas. Note the red flowered ‘sport’ on Monica.
Strange, is it not, that the camellias are sticking to their mild weather winter timetable but much else is not. Have they acclimatised to ‘climate change’ or is this the usual bollocks!The original Camellia x williamsii ‘Muskoka’ has one or two huge flowers below the Magnolia veitchii. My grandmother was born in Muskoka in northern Canada and my mother was evacuated there for the was which she hated.
A rush to get in before the next heavy shower. Early to bed and no alcohol! Now back in full Christmas working mode.
2001 – FJW
Second night of hardish frost. Pond nearly completely frozen. Swans uncomfortable.
2000 – FJW
A very wet year ends with gale force winds and rain.
1999 – FJW
A very wet month.
1978 – FJW
Biggest amount of snow yet seen. No electricity, very cold – Caerhays cut off with a house full of DJW’s friends for New Year who eventually leave in a tractor and trailer through the snowdrifts for St Austell station.
1960 – FJW
Wettest year since 1877 and possibly 1852. Very fortunate in gale damage. Cam japonica Arijishi out in Greenhouse.
1958 – FJW
Very wet year. 40 year old rain record broken easily. Garden very much behind.
Sent off to Munroes both white heath and Darleyense and some hundreds of single Camellias. J.C.W out also double white and a few other doubles out. Rho mucronulatum, Yellow Hammer, white double Azalea and bits of one yellow below Hovel road. Bits of Davidsonianum and Sutchuenense hybrids. No reds. Bits of Azalea Amoena and several Kurume.
1940 – CW
Cold spell began and this cut all flowers and probably fuchsias very badly.
1939 – JCW
No sign of any blood reds. I picked a quite perfect bud of Magnolia delavayi next to the Tin Garden but all fuchsias gone with frost. No Camellia single flower touched except whites. Half the big double white brown.
1926 – JCW
Hamamelis mollis at its best. Mucronulatum opening. A good few blood red hybrids. Camellia sasanqua never half as good before.
1924 – JCW
Hamamelis mollis. Cotoneaster salicifolia and frigida good fruiting. Erica darleyense V.G and a few Primula Forrestii just show flowers. Caucasicums fair. Dutch Pearl opening. Mucronulatum moderate.
1917 – JCW
Much as in 1910 excepting Keysii, but it is very cold and has been for a fortnight. We have just put about 200 fine Chinamen in the Rookery. A Sechuen S divide Fortunei, Sinogrande, R rhaibocarpum, Fulvum, 3 Sutchuenense hybrids, big bloods of each, and a very cold start for them, also some Cornish Loderi.
1910 – JCW
Some roses left. Rho keysii open, several say 20% of the daffs up, rather less of the one year olds. Several lapagerias. Erica hybrida good. Rho nobleanum nice.
1897 – JCW
R royali opening. Daffs above ground.