13th February | The Garden Diary

FJW 1955-2007

CHW 2015-

JCW 1897-1939

CW 1940-1955

2026 – CHW

Raining for the last 4 days.

Another day and a walk along a path at the top of the garden to find yet more unnoticed tree damage.

The trunk of the Scots pine by George’s Hut has gone.

The Donkey Shoe from the other side of the felled insignis.

Magnolia ‘Lanarth’ (New Zealand form) coming out despite losing a branch or two in the hurricane.

The mess on the paths is awful and opening only 3 weeks away.

Two branches broken off a Magnolia x loebneri ‘Merrill’.

I planted this Acer saccharinum as a specimen tree in 1991. Blown over in the hurricane.

The end of Eucryphia milliganii – blown out of the ground.

The end of a Rhaphiolepis.

Plenty of laurel blown over by the best Quercus acuta.

The Acer saccharinum has smashed half the Reevesia pubescens and crushed the already blown down and uprighted Magnolia ‘Princess Margaret’.

A few blown open flowers on Magnolia ‘Shirraz’.

Similarly the Magnolia sargentiana var. robusta x M. sprengeri near George’s Hut is nearly out.

Camellia ‘Sweet Olive’ just showing.

2025 – CHW

Camellia ‘Fairy Blush’ now full out and a good show for visitors.

Camellia reticulata – White form – just out at the very top of the bush.

Podocarpus parlatorei rompinig ahead above the greenhouse.

As is Podocarpus lambertii.

Camellia ‘Fairy Bush’ set in front of a young Quercus ilex.

2024 – CHW
Magnolias rush out after a night of wind and rain showers.The view from the front door over the arch by the back yard.

The original Magnolia campbellii looks a bits better colour in the sun.

The largest Magnolia campbellii ‘Valentine’s Torch’ is just starting. Unlike the other one which we saw last week this has not been blown open prematurely.

Magnolia ‘Todd’s Fortyniner’ moves forward.

As I had feared the (true) Magnolia ‘Lanarth’ has been blown open prematurely and slightly frosted.

The other 1950’s planted Magnolia campbellii is a good colour.

Magnolia ‘F. J. Williams’ has blown open since yesterday. A little premature.

Magnolia campbellii ‘Lamellyn’ now, suddenly, full out on the Drive.

Rhododendron ‘Winters Interlude’ (which is late out) just going over.

The view across to Giddle Orchard.

Another magnolia just starting above the wall up from the front door.

2023 – CHW
The garden season started today; our first day of opening this year. Around 100 visitors in the sun.Well budded camellias at the sales point.

The newly installed polytunnel to keep any frost off things.

A good show of helleborus.

Magnolias and other things.

I am attempting to fill in the long and complex forms necessary to register Camellia x williamsii ‘Mary Pickthorn’ with The Camellia Society International. The forms seem rather out of date as they ask for transparencies. In photography terms these went out with the dinosaur.

Here are some photographs of fully out flowers necessary to measure flower size and, using the RHS Colour Charts, to identify the exact flower colours.

The thing which, to my mind, makes this chance seedling interesting and worthy of registration as being unique and different is the strange and irregular dark pink blotches and mottling on the very pale pink flowers. Not known in any other x williamsii camellia variety bred and raised at Caerhays.

Camellia japonica ‘Italiana Vera’ is fairly new here. Not that different but, not surprisingly, it sports the odd pink flower as you can see.

Camellia japonica ‘Adeyaka’ is also new and a very vivid red indeed. Only a single though.

The planting team pictures in the Kitchen Garden with the Malus collection all in the ground and planted (65 varieties – 185 trees). These now get uploaded to the Queens Green Canopy website with the layout plan and list of varieties which you can see here as an attachment.

Right to left – Paul Sanderson – Timothy Kraft – Jaimie Parsons – John Kelly – Michael Levitt

2022 – CHW

Frankie and his mighty machine have cleared the two fallen beech trees below Old Park and Brownberry.

The clearance of the old Camellia japonica above the Dog Kennels has made an excellent area for new planting. Perhaps the new Amelanchier collection should go here?

Work is now one and a half days into clearing the Kitchen Garden for replanting in the autumn with our new collection of flowering malus (crab apples). With such a huge machine it does not take long although we are taking great care to protect the old stone lined watercourse and the remains of the old greenhouse and potting shed. My father planted conifers here in the early 1960s to finally retire the two fulltime vegetable gardeners. The conifers grew badly as it was too wet and they were never thinned properly. Some trunks and timber have been saved but probably only as firewood for Ross’ business. A mountainous fire with whole roots (shaken of earth) going on the top.

The old potting shed and apple store which we hope to restore one day.

Lots more to deal with yet.

The Magnolia campbellii seedling outside the back yard now has some decent flowers.

Jaimie’s Rhododendron ‘Maisie’.

2021 – CHW
Another storm casualty which I also missed earlier has been a large chunk of the elderly Rhododendron arboreum (white) on the path up to the Isla Rose Plantation. The same rhododendron we saw in the 1907 or 1921? pictures a week or two ago. Asia collected seed from this plant last autumn ‘just in case’. Another mess to clear up in the rush before opening as it was on Thursday in the freezing cold and alarmingly strong gusts of beastly east wind.

It now looks as though we will not open tomorrow after all. Heavy rain and 40mph winds are forecast so it will be too dangerous to risk the public. The forecast for next week looks pretty horrid as well. Jaimie has made the right call but it muddles the publicity surrounding our reopening.

Frankie and his digger have helped clear the Lower Rockery Path and the turkey oak trunk has been sectioned up and moved out of the way. The mess and crown will have to wait a few days to sort out.

Frankie has moved on to widen a couple of bridges with additional telegraph poles for supports. One is of course the one that I tipped the mule off into a flooded River Luney on 16th November last year with a heavily pregnant Serena on board. She called today to tell us her husband now has COVID in Juba in South Sudan where he is a British army colonel attached to the UN peacekeeping mission there. COVID in that sort of heat cannot be pleasant and on vacuum packed army rations with no proper fresh fruit. Thankfully he stocked up on vitamins and medicines when he was briefly back in the UK in early January. Quite how he will now get back to the UK for the birth in April remains a worry to us all.Saw some golden plover today near Nancor Farm above Grampound struggling in the wind and probably also struggling to feed anywhere. The woodcock have been seen recently in the garden more and more (and at Burncoose) where I guess they will have, by now, departed into France or a mid-Atlantic death. The GWCT farm bird count will be interesting this year as most migratory birds will have been blown way off course or snuggled down to wait out the ‘Beast’. I saw in the papers an extremely rare sighting of a US bird on Exmoor. It would get home quickly on this easterly storm!

View 13th February 1897 – 2020