19th July | The Garden Diary

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CONTRIBUTORS:

FJW 1955-2007

CHW 2015-

JCW 1897-1939

CW 1940-1955

2024 – CHW

In the Isle of Wight and a trip to Busy Bee Garden Centre.

All the white poplar trees have gone in the car park and new tarmac being laid throughout. Despite this major expenditure the plant area was looking very windswept, badly watered, and a big let down in comparison to previous years. I found little to photograph.

Lavandula allardii ‘Meerlo’ – oddly variegated.

Monarda ‘Balmy Pink’ – dwarf growing.

Monarda ‘Balmy Lilac’.

Silene maritima is a plant which I do think Burncoose and the website could usefully stock as a wall or rockery plant for coastal gardens.

Erodium ‘Bishops Form’ is a good groundcover.

Ilex x meserveae ‘Little Rascal’ an interesting dwarf holly.

Skimmia japonica subsp. reevesiana with berries already.

Lobelia ‘Starship Rose’ and ‘Strawberry Blue’ – nice enough but nothing special.

Muehlenbeckia axillaris ‘Golden Girl’ a yellow variant of a plant we know well.

2023 – CHW

Decent garden centres have well signed display beds for the public. Honnor and Jeffery win again.

A wonderful clump of Geranium ‘Russell Prichard’.

And a huge clump of Geranium ‘Rozanne’.

Berries already on Aronia melanocarpa.

Scirpus cernuus a new grass like thing which I had not seen before.

Sorbus commixta ‘Olympic Flame’ with berries turning colour already.

Laburnum ‘Lemon Drops’ with seed heads.

Cotoneaster ‘Hybridus Pendulus’ with berries turning colour already.

2022 – CHW

Heatwave but still at least a breeze. 5 acres of barley on fire at Higher Polmenna last Saturday but half the field saved by fire brigade.

Hydrangea ‘Fireworks’ nearly out on the drive.

Hydrangea

Hydrangea ‘Quadricolour’.

Good large flowers on a clump of Hydrangea ‘Joseph Banks’ cut down 2 years ago.

A new side roof on the side of the Blacksmith’s Shop. Storm Eunice damage to the scantle slate that was there in February.

Erigeron ‘See Breeze’ on Monica’s garden wall.

Alison’s potted display at the Top Lodge as good as ever.

First flowering on the drive of Hydrangea aspera ‘Macrophylla’.

A young Polyspora axillaris making good growth on the drive. This one from Stervenou Nurseries in France and a bit different to our more mature plant from Crug Farm with the same name. The taxonomists have a lot to do to work through Polyspora.

Rhododendron ‘Harrow Hybrids’ from below on Hovel Cart Road. Easily the best show in the garden today.

2021 – CHW
I find 30 or so cattle in the garden. TB testing of 250 animals today so chaos in the yard. Do we have a phantom gate opener though as this is the second example of cattle ‘opening’ a tied up gate themselves in the last three weeks.

I am not sure what this yellow flower is amongst this hedgerow clump of tufted vetch (Vicia cracca)? Possibly Genista tinctoria?

Tufted vetch and red campion (Silene dioica).

I think this is hedge bedstraw in full flower – Gallium album growing in profusion at the top of Herreswater.

Deutzia pulchra just going over.

Cornus kousa ‘Milky Way’ by the bonfire with just a few flowers left. This plant is now too shaded.

I am not sure if this is Deutzia prunifolia or not (possibly Deutzia maliflora). Not in Hillier’s and Google search no help. Martin Rix may be able to help later this week.

The best of the Rhododendron ‘Harrow Hybrids’ just out on Hovel Cart Road.

Ailanthus altissima ‘Purple Dragon’ looking very fine.

A young Stewartia pseudocamellia starting to flower in Kennel Close.

Tilia caroliniana subsp. heterophylla (syn. Tilia monticola) with enormous secondary growth new leaves.

The dwarf Fagus sylvatica ‘Franken’ with white secondary growth and mottled older leaves.

I have missed the flowering of Styrax americanus (Kanakee Form) while away in the Isle of Wight.

2020 – CHW
A trip to Trelowarren to look at the plans for the 18th century garden restoration which is still at the planning stage.

A view of the house from the now cleared lawn. This will become a natural wildflower meadow next year when left uncut.

An avenue through the old garden wood and back to the house which has just been reopened.

The largest sweet chestnut I have seen other than at Belvoir.

The new circle in the centre of what was the site of the original house.

A few problems with a collapsed wall.

2019 – CHW
Returned home after some decent rain and a quick rush to see if the other two new Manglietias had come out. M. kwangtungensis buds are now the size of goose eggs but not yet open.Magnolia tamaulipana has produced its flower and we have missed it!

Good new growth now on the plant however.

Still some flowers on Magnolia globosa but also seed heads.

Extraordinarily I find one rancid flower still showing on Michelia doltsopa.

It must have been hot in the last fortnight as I spot four obvious new casualties from the drought. Here a good Rhododendron kiyosumense.

The Meliosma oldhamii flowers are so heavy that they have broken off a side branch from the tree.

The flower heads are now completely pendulous and full out. Covered in insects so we may well get seed I hope.

2018 – CHW
Off to Briddlesford dairy and farm shop. This dairy farming family have just branched out and built their own dairy where they produce their own milk, cream, butter and cheese. Quite an enterprise and one of the only dairy farms to survive on the island with their pedigree Guernsey herd.

Then to Godshill cherry farm. 4,500 cherry trees all covered by nets and plastic covers. They produce a tonne of cherries a day in season. Quite delicious!

This is a Stewardship mix grown supposedly for the turtle dove and paying £550 per hectare in grant. Not growing well as you can see! No sign of any turtle doves but pigeons aplenty.

2017 – CHW
Magnolia virginiana ‘Moonglow’ is now full out.

Behind it is a Stewartia pseudocamellia, a Crug Farm collection, doing really well at 10ft or so but I missed it in flower. A few seed pods are now obvious at the very end of long twigs. Will not forget next year.

A young plant of Tetradium fraxinifolium is doing well. Purplish-black hue to the leaf stalks.

Schefflera myriocarpa has two flowers about to emerge at 15ft or so. Excellent foliage and another one we should be selling.

Schefflera pauciflora has a flower coming too but not much foliage.

At last a young Magnolia nitida tucked away in shelter which looks as though it will grow on into a decent tree. After many failures to re-establish this rare species this is good news.

Then another pleasant surprise and rather a big one. Huge blue-black cones weeping white sap in profusion on Abies pinsapo growing now to about 15ft in Kennel Close. There were certainly no cones last year. Planted in 2009. This is the Spanish fir or hedgehog fir.

Abies delavayi is growing nearby and also has its first cones. These are more rounded and barrel shaped than A. pinsapo with large spikes or spines which are also blueish-violet. The leaf structure is more dense as you can see. Of Indian and Chinese origin.

Both are novelties to me and very well worth growing!

Good purplish secondary new growth on Liquidambar calycina. This plant is seriously taking off in its third year from planting out.

2016 – CHW
Five hours with a BT surveyor on the hottest day of the year trying to work out the cost and practicalities of bringing fibre optic cable from the new Superfast box in West Portholland to the castle and village. The BT plans are not very accurate but fortunately the existing cable is in ducting for about 25% of the route rather than on poles. Relatively easy to pull another cable through the ducting. For five years we and everyone on the estate have struggled with 3-4mbs of broadband speed. We may now have a solution which will not cost nearly as much as the alternatives if BT play ball.Pterocarya fraxinifolia is developing seeds in what were long trailing catkin-like flowers. The trailing seed pods are an attractive yellowish-green and I have not seen these before on the tree outside the back yard which my father was given by Lord Falmouth. It is a suckering tree which needs a huge amount of room to develop into a clump unless you cut the suckers off each year as they do at Wisley and Tregothnan.

Hydrangea quercifolia is just coming out nicely on the drive. These are very short lived plants.

2015 – CHWThe fruit clusters of Lithocarpus pachyphyllus seed are already much in evidence and what a crop this year! Branches will break under the weight of the seeds by autumn. However the puzzle is why are there still flower spikes in profusion when the seed has already set? There were trailing female catkins evident in March and some of the new inflorescences at the tips of the twigs look the same. The shorter inflorescences further back on the stem would seem to be male but why appear now? I hope this is not all a sign that this record tree is dying.

Quercus acuta has acorns showing but we have never seen them flesh out fully. This lovely evergreen oak is easy from cuttings.

1990 – FJW
Lapageria out. Wilson’s fortunei (discolor) has been outstanding.

1963 – FJW
Metrosideros lucida flowering very well indeed.

1927 – JCW
Buddleia’s nice 3-4 varieties. Plagianthus good. Romneya very good. American Pillars out a month is now on the downgrade.

1925 – JCW
American Pillar wanes. Buddleia opening. Romneya good. Plagianthus opening and is quite nice now. No crop of discolor or of auriculation or of weyrichii. Decorum, Falconeri is just over, it is very late for some things.

1910 – JCW
L giganteum nearly over. Brunonis over, R coulteri fair. Mitraria good. R cinnabarinum going back. Buddleias show colour.

One thought on “19th July”

Georg Ruf says:

29th June 2023 at 1:32 pm

’21 The many yellow flowers on a long stalk belong to Agrimonia eupatoria. ’16 Pterocarya are good trees for a great garden or so, but the often seen Caucasian P. frax. is weedy with its suckering habit. More apt are Pterocarya rhoifolia, the Japanese Wingnut or P. macroptera from central China. It should also be quite drought resistant.

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