4th January 1897- 2020 | The Garden Diary

FJW 1955-2007

CHW 2015-

JCW 1897-1939

CW 1940-1955

2020 – CHW
I could not resist photographing Daphne bholua ‘Garden House Ghost’ again now it is full out. The scent is now also simply gorgeous.

The scented narcissi outside the dining room are just starting into flower but no scent as yet. They are usually pickable at Christmas time so a bit late this year. This is Narcissus papyraceus or Narcissus ‘Paper White’ from Spain and southern France.

A ripe black fruit on Sarcococca salignus by the front gate. I seem to have missed the flowers which are now well over.

No sign of a snowdrop or a wild daffodil out yet despite what I read in the newspapers about snowdrops flowering last year in November/December in various parts of the country. A daily check from now on as time permits.

2019 – CHW
Michelia ‘Fairy White’ already has flowers showing colour and tons of buds still covered with their attractive orange furry casing.

Plenty of buds all over Rhododendron lindleyi which will not be out until May.

A strange single flower out on a yellow deciduous azalea below Donkey Shoe. An aberration but I need to check the plant on the drive which often flowers now and there is one at Burncoose too.

First flowers on the huge Camellia ‘California Sunset’. This is only its second year of performing properly.

2018 – CHW
A trip to below the Engine House.Magnolia ‘Star Wars’ is out if you can call it that! Many flower heads blown off and rotting in the recent gales. In fact very few buds left for the main flowering season in two months or so. I guess these flowers, although poor in colour, are actually spring rather than summer or autumn ones. As such this is the first magnolia to be ‘out’ this year (2018). Sorry the picture is so poor.

A clump of seedling Eriobotrya japonica (fourth japonica in three days!) planted on an old bonfire where I thought they would never live or thrive. Massive rabbit damage year on year to the stems and trunks but still they prosper.

A rather stunted and poor Schefflera rhododendrifolia which is struggling. Not sure what has eaten the leaves. Looks more like vine weevil or tortrix moth than slugs?

Cephalotaxus harringtonia var koreana has excellent yellow needles in parts. Very slow growing with a fastigiate habit.

Very few buds either on Magnolia sprengeri ‘Diva’. Almost a year off.

Rhododendron ‘Wine and Roses’ (a group of three) showing off the undersides of their leaves.

Not quite yet ripe seed heads on one of Tom Hudson’s wild collected Rhododendron ririei which I collect for Asia. Worth returning in case the ones I grabbed do not dry off and shed properly.

2017 – CHW
A hydrangea inspection day as a repeat of last January’s. Hydrangea ‘Joseph Banks’ still holding colour in January! Less so than last January perhaps.

Likewise Hydrangea ‘Madame Mouilliere’ still has good white mopheads amid many other dead flowers. We have seen flowers on this clump and photographed them several times through last year in this diary starting in May I seem to remember.

A Hydrangea quercifolia clump still with a full set of green leaves in January. It is not an evergreen and yet here, in a windy site, there is still little sign of autumn colouring. Very odd!

2016 – CHW
The tiny Magnolia ‘Lanarth’ planted in 1955 opposite the Georgian Hall is, for the first time ever, plastered in bud. It has only ever twice had three to five flowers before. However now the buds are swelling and their secondary outer ‘coats’ have been shed.

Since we have been on a magnolia flower quest here are two more (different) Magnolia grandiflora cultivars. I think one would call these ‘late’ in this odd season but I did photograph the same plants with flowers in February and March last year so not that ‘odd’ perhaps. Magnolia ‘March till frost’ still has a flower as well as most of its leaves. However this is a poor tail end secondary flower and not a new spring one. The plant lives up to its name as we have not had a frost yet! Another youngish plant also has a flower or two below the main ride.

1972 – FJW
Cold spell started.1959 – FJW
B.N.A saw first primrose, November pink good – garden very late.1953 – FJW
There are still buds on Mag Grandiflora and Eucryphia pinatafolia has flowers. Heaths good – Early pink forms of Saluensis and Hamamelis. A few Sutchuenense hybrids. A good pink one in beech walk best. Frost has cut an odd early Rho Thompsonii but not scarlets which are beginning. Camellias taliensis and oleifera almost over. No Thompsonii x Arboreum out.

1931 – JCW
Much as in 1930 C speciosa is better and we have had nice Gardenia flowers up to 7 inches across. R venustum has supplied house flowers for two months.

1930 – JCW
Mucronulatum is very good, Camellia speciosa is opening in the wood and in the walk. The Hamamelis is very fine indeed, much of the wreckage of the storm of Dec 5th has been cleaned up in the New Planting and the men have done a fine work seeing the shooting parties and Christmas.

1928 – JCW
Much behind the above owing to 3 weeks of cold. Mucronulatum is not open but Hamamelis is.

1927 – JCW
H Mollis is very good, Thompsonii x Arboreum a fair lot, one Sutchuenense hybrid flower, but there are no buds to speak of in this section. A few irroratum are opening, mucronulatum has a lot of flower.