2022 – CHW

To Burncoose to start work on the 2022/3 budget and to pick out plants for the sales area here.

Daphne ‘Perfume Princess’ looking perfect in the cash point.

Iris unguicularis cheers up a drab day in February.

Viburnum taitoense surprisingly in full flower in a tunnel.

Magnolia ‘Cameo’ full out in a trade order pile.

A great show on the hellebore bed.

The new seed house is filling up and the deep bed for larger seeds is vermin proof.

The leaves on Acanthus ‘Whitewater’ show up well.

Edgeworthia chrysantha ‘Akebana’ in full flower as you would expect.

Moving trays of liners ready for potting from our own propagation department. Looking excellent.

Helleborus x sahinii ‘Winterbells’ is new to our catalogue this year. The flowers hang down and are a bit hidden from view.

Helleborus ‘Moondance’

No magnolias out in the garden apart from ‘Strybing White’. However the best thing in the Burncoose garden today was Rhododendron mucronulatum. A larger flowered form than ours here with paler pinkish flowers.

High up the Burncoose version of Rhododendron ririei is also a different colour in flower to the ones featured recently in this diary.

Rhododendron ‘Seta’ on the drive also excellent. I hope we have propagated this?

2021 – CHW
The huge stump of the once UK record Osmanthus yunnanensis has been neatly dug out and removed yesterday on one of the coldest windy but dry days anyone can remember in the recent past (or since March 2018). Hopefully the second pollarded old tree beside it will not have suffered too much root damage in the process and will continue to reshoot. There is another ancient O. yunnanensis hidden away in rhododendron scrub below Hovel Cart Road and a decent young plant now getting away after deer nibbling above the Magnolia x veitchii.

To my surprise the garden clearly has taken a battering but the damage, so far, is rather less than we had all feared. We did hear trees go down but nothing see yet to interfere with the garden opening on Sunday.

I am always amazed that this double trunked Cryptomeria japonica stays upright in an east wind. Plenty of twig debris on the ground.

The digger has finished the camellia stumps below the Rookery. All neat and tidy for planting soon.

As in 2018 laurel leaves blown from the laurel hedges all along the Main Ride. Without these windbreaks many more tender plants might well have died.

The Symplocos dryophylla was not as dead as it looked when cut back. It might reshoot but I doubt it.

Camellia x williamsii ‘Citation’ with its irregular semi double and occasionally single flowers. This elderly plant by Georges Hut is out a bit later than usual and has larger flowers than others in the garden here.

We are adding our propagated plants of Cinnamomum japonicum to the Burncoose catalogue. Here are some pictures of our 30 year old plant originally from Windsor which John Bond felt was too tender for them to grow. Strongly suckering plant with knobbly green bark at first on the many suckers. The trunk then goes woody as you see here. The plant is 25-30ft tall.

A tidy up around the, once record tree, Pinus pinaster which fell a year or so ago.

When having a bonfire in strong winds near other plants cut a few laurel branches to protect nearby plants that could get singed. Nutty rather obscures this.

The old Lindera communis has been dying in its top branches for a few years but plenty of reshooting from the base which we have been propagating for the last two years. Tim has done an excellent neat cutback of the whole plant. More chance of success here than with the Symplocos.

By way of comparison this is Cinnamomum camphora. Very similar green knobbly bark on the suckers but the leaf is a bit different. This one is growing in full shelter and full shade.

Next door is Cinnamomum glanduliferum which is a champion tree. A much larger upright and non-suckering tree. The leaves are a bit scorched and high up to photograph easily but they do look (to me) Litsea-like? However the leaves are indeed glaucous underneath as they should be. Another dullish rarity.

First flower on the white form of Rhododendron nobleanum planted out last spring. Purchased from Millais Nurseries.

Frankie is clearing off the Hovel Cart Road path for opening. Rather quicker than using shovels as the garden team are happy to agree.

A youngish Rhododendron grande below Hovel Cart Road. Slightly pink in bud but the normal colour when open unlike the one we looked at a day or two ago.

The Trevanion Holly on the drive is probably at least 150 years old. The east wind has caused more leaf drop but the crown looks fit and well. The leaves have no prickles except at the tips. What variety does this make it? Ilex x altaclarensis ‘Balearica’? More investigation needed.

A branch off an evergreen buddleia and a deciduous azalea blown several yards down onto the drive in the gales. I had expected much more of this.

Of course I spoke too soon. A large turkey oak has crashed down on Lower Rookery Path taking out half a yew and some large magnolia branches. The tree looks very rotten in its base and was one on the list for the tree surgeon. However it is not that big a job as it is a long thin trunk with not much of a crown. It could have made far more mess if it had fallen any other way as is often the case in natural disasters like this as opposed to tree surgery and felling.

Brock eats a camellia flower and then everyone joins in the fun with the storm fallen flowers of Camellia x williamsii ‘Gwenneth Morey’. Not much left!

Vaccinum cylindraceum with reddish tints fronting the darker Phillyrea angustifolia.

Another new addition to the Burncoose catalogue is Phyllocladus trichomanoides var. alpina. This very slow growing dwarf plant was a gift from the head gardener at Mount Congreve originally in 2007.

I was wrong yesterday. Rhododendron ‘Bo Peep’ (pink form) is full out above the greenhouse.